By^9 




m 



t n 



I 



GOV. HAMMOND'S LETTERS 

A 

ON 

SOUTHERN SLAVERY. 

ADDRESSED TO THOMAS CLARKSON, 

r ' 
THE ENGLISH ABOLITIOMST. 



I^O. I. 

Introduction — the Slave Trade, and futile attempts to abolish it — Prescriptive 
Right — Slavery in the Abstract — in its Moral and Religious Aspect — in its Po- 
litical Influences, as affecting Public Order, and the Safety and Power of the 
Stale. 

Silver Bluff, S. C, Jan. 28, 1845. 

Sir : — I received a short time ago, a letter from the Rev. Willoiighby M. 
Dickinson, dated at your residence, "Playford Hall, near Ipswich, 26th Nov., 1844," 
in which was enclosed a copy of your Circular Letter addressed to professing 
Christians in our Northern States, having no concern with Slavery, and to others 
there. I presume that Mr. Dickinson's letter was written with your knowledge 
and the document enclosed with your consent and approbation, [therefore i'eel that 
there is no impropriety in my addressing my reply directly to yourself, especially as 
there is nothing in Mr. Dickinson's communication requiring serious notice. — 
Having abundant leisure, it will be a recreation to me to devote a portion of it to 
an examination and free discussion of the question of Slavery as it exists in our 
Southern States: and since you have thrown down the gauntlet to me, I do not 
hesitate to take it up. 

Familiar as you have been with the discussions of this subject in all its aspects, 
and under all the excitements it has occasioned for sixty years past, I may not be 
able to present much that will be new to you. Nor ought I to indulge the hope of 
materially affecting the opinions you have so long cherished, and so zealously pro- 
mulgated. Still time and experience have developed facts, constantly furnishing fresh 
tests to opinions formed sixty years since, and continually placing this great question 
in points of view, which could scarcely occur to the most consummate intellect even 
a quarter of a century ago: and which may not have occurred yet to those who«e 
previous convictions, prejudices and habits of thought have thoroughly and perma- 
nently biased them to one fixed way of looking at the matter: While there are pe- 
culiarities in the operation of every social system, and special local as well as moral 
causes materially aflecting it which no one, placed at the distance you are from us, 
can fully comprehend or properly apjjreciate. Besides, it may be possibly, a novelty 
to you to encounter one who conscientiously believes the domestic Slavery of these 
States to be not only an inexorable necessity for the present, but a moral and hu- 
mane institution, productive of the greatest political and social advantages, and who 
is disposed as I am, to defend it on these grounds. 

I do not propose, however, to defend the African Slave Trade. That is no longer 
a question. Doubtless great evils arise from it as it has been, and is now conducted: 



r 




:>i 




Gov, Hammond's Ijettei^s on Southern Slavery. 



unnecessary wars and cruel kidnapping in Africa: the most shocking barbarities in 

the Middle Passage: and perhaps a less humane system of slavery in countries con- 

tinually supplied with fresh laborers at a cheap late. The evils of it, however, it 

be fairly presumed, are greatly exaggerated. And if I might judge of the truth 

fansactions stated as occuring in this trade, by that of those reported as trans- 

among us, I should not hesitate to say that a large proportion of the stories in 

ion are unfounded, and most of the remainder highly colored. 

passage of the Act of Parliament prohibiting this trade to British subjects 
at you esteem the glory of your life. It required twenty years of arduous 
on, and the intervening extraordinary political events, to convince your coun- 
n, and among the I'est your pious King, of the expediency of this measure: 
it is but just to say, that no individual rendered more essential service to the cause 
n you did. In reflecting on the subject, you must often ask yourself: What 
after all has been accomplished; how much human suffering has been averted; how 
many human beings have been rescued from transatlantic slavery? And on the an- 
swers you can give these questions, mu.st in a great measure I presume, depend the 
happiness of your life. In framing them, how frequently must you be reminded of 
the remark of Mr Grosvenor, in one of the early debates upon the subject, which 
I believe you have yourself recorded, "that he had twenty objections to the abolition 
of the Slave Trade: the first was, that it was impossible- — the rest he need not 
give." Can you say to yourself, or to the world, that this first objection of Mr. 
Grosvenor has been vet confuted? It was estimated at the commencement of your 
agitation in 1787, that forty.five thousand Africans were annually transported to 
America and the West Indies. And the mortality of the Middle Passage, computed 
by spme at 5, is now admitted not to have exceeded 9 per cent. Notwithstanding 
your Act of Parliament, the previous abolition by the United States, and that all the 
powers in the world have subsequently prohibited this trade — -some of the greatest 
of them declaring it piracy, and covering the African seas with aimed vessels to 
prevent it — Sir Thomas Fowel Buxton, a coadjutor of yours, declared in 1840, that 
-the-itamber of Africans now annually sold into slavery beyond the sea, amounts, at 
the very least, to one hundred and fifty thousand souls; while the mortality of the 
Middle Passage has increased, in consequence of the measures taken to suppress 
the trade, to 25 or 30 per cent. And of the one hundred and fifty thousand slaves 
who have been captured and liberated by British men of Avar since the pa.ssage of 
your Act. Judge Jay, an American abolitionist, asserts that one hundred thousand, or 
two-thirds, have perished between their capture and liberation. Does it not really 
seem that Mr. Grosvenor was a prophet? That though nearly all the "impossibili- 
ties" of 1787 have vanished, and become as familiar /"ac/s as our household customs, 
under the magic influence of steam, cotton and universal peace, yet this wonderful 
prophecy still stands, defying time and the energy and genius of mankind. Thou- 
sands of valuable lives and fifty millions of pounds sterling have been given away by 
your government in fiuitless attemps to overturn it. I hope you have not lived too 
long for your own happiness, though you have been spared to see that in spite of all 
your toil and those of your fellow laborers, and the accomplishment of all that human 
agency could do, the African Slave Trade has increased three-fold under your own 
eyes — more rapidly, perhaps, than any other ancient branch of commerce — and that 
yoirr efforts to suppress it, have effected no^/tmo- ?»ore than a three-fold increase of 
its horrors. There is a God who rules this world — all powerful — far-seeing. He 
does not permit His creatures to foil His designs. It is He who, forHisalhvi.se, 
though to us often inscrutable purposes, throws "imposibilities" in the way of our 
fondest hopes and most strentious exertions. Can you doubt this? 

Experience having settled the point, that this Trade cannot be abolished by the 
use of force, and that blockading squadrons serve only to make it more profitable and 
more cruel, I am surprised that the attempt is persisted in, unless a.s it serves as a 
cloak to some other purposes. It would be flir better than it now/is, for the African, 
if the trade was free from all rcstriction.s, and left to the mitigaHon and decay which 
time and competition would surely bring about. If kidn^^iug, both secretly and 
by war made for the purpose, could be by any means printed in Africa, the next 



i 



H-9ii7 



<^ Chv. HammondJs Letters cm Saiitheiii Slavery. 3 

c? 

^ greatest blessing you could bestow upon that country, would be to transport its ac- 
*v tual slaves in comfortable vessels across the Atlantic. Though they might be per- 
Q^ petual bondsnnen, still they would emerge from darkness into light — from barbarism 

. to civilization — -from idolatry to Christianity — in short from death to life. 
•■ "^^ But let us leave the African slave trade, which has so signally defeated the Phi. 
lanthropy of the world, and turn to American slavery, to which you have now di- 
rected your attention, and against which a crusade has been preached as enthusiastic 
and ferocious as that of Peter the Hermit — destined, I believe, to be about as suc- 
cessful. And here let me say, there is not a vast difference between the two, though 
you may not acknowledge it. The wisdom of ages has concurred in the justice and 
expediency of establishing rights by prescriptive use, however tortious in their ori- 
gin they may have been. Yon would deem a man insane whose keen sense of equi- 
ty would lead him to denounce your right to the lands you hold, and which 
perhaps you inherited from a long line of ancestry, because your title was derived 
from a Saxon or Norman conqueror, and your lands were originally wrested by 
violence from the vanquished Briton^. And so would the New England Abolitionist 
regard any one who would insist that he should restore his farm to the descendants 
of the slaughtered Red men, to whom, God has as clearly given it, as he gave life 
and freedom to the kidnapped African. That time does not consecrate wrong, is a 
fallacy which all history exposes; and which the best and wisest men of all ages 
and professions of religious faith, have practically denied. The means, therefore, 
whatever they may have been, by which the African race now in this country, have 
been reduced to slavery, cannot affect us, since they are our property, as your land is 
yours, by inheritance or purchase and prescriptive right. You will say that mqin 
cannot hold property in man. The ansv/cr is. that he can, and actually does hold 
property in his fellow all the world over, in a variety of forms, and has always done 
sa, r will show presently his authority for doing it. 

If you were to ask me whether I was an advocate of slavery in the abstract I 
should probably answer, that I am not, according to my understanding of the question. 
I do not like to deal in abstractions; it seldom leads to any useful ends. There are 
few universal truths. I do not now remember any single moral ti-uth universally ac- 
knowledged. We have no assurance that it is given to our finite understanding to 
comprehend abstract moral truth. Apart from Revelation and the Inspired writings, 
what ideas should we have even of God, Salvation and Immortality? Let the Heathen 
answer. Justice itself is impalpable as an abstraction, and abstract liberty the mer- 
est phantasy that ever amused the imagination. This world was made for man, and 
man for the world as it is. Our.*elves, our relations with one another, and with all 
matter, are real, not ideal. I might say that I am no more in favor of slavery in the 
abstract, than I am of povery, disease, deformity, idiocy or any other inequality in 
the condition of the human family; that I love perfection, and think I should enjoy a 
Millenium such as God has pronjised. But what would it amount to? A pledge that 
I would join you to set about eradicating those apparently inevitable evils of our na- 
ture, in equalizing the condition of all mankind, consummating the perfection of our 
race, and introducing the Millenium? By no means. To eff*eci these things belongs 
exclusively to a higher power, and would be well for us to leave the Almiglity to 
perfect His own works and fulfil His own covenants. Especially, as the history of 
all the past shows how entirely futile all human efilirts have proved, when made for 
the purpose of aiding Him in carrying out even His revealed designs, and how inva- 
rially he has accomplished them by unconscious instruments, and in the face of human 
expectation. Nay more, that every attempt which has been made by fallible man 
to extort from the world obedience to his "abstract" notions of right and wrong, has 
l>een invariably attended with calamities, dire and extended, just in proportion to the 
breadth and vigor of the movement. On slavery in the abstract then, it would not 
be amiss to have as little as possible to say. Let us contemplate it as it is. And 
thus contemplating it, the first question we have to ask ourselves is, whether it is con- 
trary to the Will of God, as revealed to us in His holy scriptures — the only certain 
means given us to ascertain His will. If it is, then slavery is a sin; and I admit at 
once that every man is bound to set his face against it, and to emancipate his slaves, 
should he hold any. 



4 Gov. Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery. 

Let us open these holy scriptures. In the 20th chapter of Exodus, 17th verse, I 
find the following words: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not 
covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor his ox, nor 
his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbors" — which is the Tenth of those command- 
ments which declare the essential principles of the great moral law, delivered to 
Moses by God himself. Now, disregarding all technical and verbal quibbling, as 
whol[y unworthy to be used in interpreting the Word of God, what is the plain mean- 
ing, undoubted intent, and true spirit of this commandment? Does it not emphat 
ically and explicitly forbid you to disturb your neighbor in the enjoyment of his pro- 
perty; and more especially of that which is here specifically mentioned as being law- 
fully and by this commandment made sacredly his.' Prominent in the catalogue 
stands his "man servant and his maid servant," who are thus distinctly consecrated as 
his property and guarantied to him for his exclusive benefit in the most solemn man- 
ner. You attempt to revert the otherwise irresistible conclusion, that slavery was 
thus ordained by God, by declaring that the word "slave" is not used here, and is not 
to be found in the Bible. And I have seen many learned dissertations on this point 
from Abolition pens. It is well known that both the Hebrew and Greek words 
translated "servant" in the scripture, mean also and most usually "slave." The use 
of the one word instead of the other, was a mere matter of taste with the translators 
of the Bible, as it has been with all the commentators and religious writers, the latter 
of whom have I believe for the most part adopted the term "slave," or used both 
terms indescriminately. If then, these Hebrew and Greek words include the idea of 
both systems of servitude, the conditional and unconditional, they should, as the ma- 
jor includes the minor propositions, be always translated "slaves," unless the sense 
of the whole text forbids it. The real question then, is, what idea is intended to be 
conveyed by the words used in the commandment quoted? And it is clear to my 
mind that as no limitation is affixed to them, and the express intention was to secure 
to mankind the peaceful enjoyment of every species of property, that the terms "mew 
servants and maid servants" include all classes of servants, and establish a lawful 
exclusive and indefeasible interest equally in the "Hebrew brother who shall go out 
in the seventh year," and "the yearly hired servant," and "those purchased from the 
heathen round about," who were to be "bond-men forever," as the property of their 
fellow man. You cannot deny that there were among the Hebrews "Bond-men for- 
ever." You cannot deny that God especially authorised his chosen people to pur- 
chase "Bond-men forever" from the Heathen, as recorded in the 25th chapter of 
Leviticus, and that they are there designated by the very Hebrew word used in the 
Tenth commandment. Nor can you deny that a "Bond-man for ever" is a "slave;" 
yet you endeavor to hang an argument of immortal consequence upon the wretched 
subterfuge, that the precise word "slave" is not to be found in the translation of the 
Bible; as if the translators were canonical expounders of the Holy Scriptures, and 
their toords, not God's meaning, must be regarded as His revelation. 

It is vain to look to Christ or any of his Apostles to justify such Vjlasphemous per- 
versions of the word of God Although slavery in its most revolting form was every 
where visible around them, no visionary notions of piety or philanthropy ever tempt- 
ed them to gainsay the law, even to mitigate the cruel severity of the existing sys- 
terr. On the contrary, regarding slavery as an established as well as inevitable con- 
dition of human society, they never hinted at such a thing as its termination on earth, 
any more than that "the poor may cease out of the land," which God affirms to Moses 
shall never be: and they "exhort all servants under the yoke," to "count their mas- 
ters as worthy of all honor:" "to obey them in all things according to the flesh; not 
with eye-service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God:" "not only 
the good and gentle, but also the froward:" "for what glory is it if when ye are buf- 
feted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if when ye do well and sufl^er for 
it ye take it patiently, this is acceptable of God." St. Paul actually apprehended a 
runaway slave and sent him to his master! Instead of deriving from the Gospel any 
sanction for the work you have undertaken, it would be difficuU to imagine sentiments 
and conduct more striking in contrast than those of the Apostles and Abolitionists. 

It is impossible therefore to suppose that slavery is contrary to the will of God. 



Gov. HamnwruVs Letters on Southern Slavery. 5 

It is equally absurd to say that American slavery differs in form or principle from 
that of the chosen people. We accept the Bible terms as the definition of our slavery, 
and it^ precepts as the guide of our conduct. We desire nothing more. Even the 
right to "buffet," which is esteemed so shocking, finds its express license in the gos- 
pel. 1 Pet. ii. 20. Nay, what is more, God directs the Hebrews to "bore holes in 
the ears of their brothers" to mark them, when under certain circumstances they he- 
come perpetual slaves: Ex. xxi. 6. 

I think, then, I may safely conclude, and I firmly believe, that American slavery 
is not only not a sin, but especially commanded by God through Moses, and approved 
by Christ through his apostles. And here I might close its defence; for what God 
ordained and Christ sanctifies, should surely command the respect and toleration of 
man. But I fear theie has grown up in our time a Transcendental Religion which 
is throwing even Transcendental Philosophy into the shade; a religion too pure and 
elevated for the Bible; which seeks to erect among men a higher standard of morals 
than the Almighty has revealed or our Saviour preached, and which is probably des- 
fined to do more t« impede the extension of God's Kingdom on earth than all the 
Infidels who have ever lived. Error is error. It is as dangerous to deviate to the right 
hand as to the left. And when men professing to be holy men, and who are by num- 
bers so regarded, declare those things to be sinful which our Creator has expressly 
authorized and instituted, they do more to destroy his authority among mankind than 
the most wicked can affect by proclaiming that to be innocent which He has forbid- 
den. To this self-righteous and self-exalted class belong all the Abolitionists whose 
writings I have read. With them it is no end of the argiunent to prove your propo- 
sitions by the test of the Bible, interpreted according to its plain and palpable mean- 
ing, and as understood by all mankind for three thousand years before their time. 
They are more ingenious in construing and interpolating to accommodate it to their 
new-tangled and etherial code of morals, than ever were Voltaire or Hume in picking 
it to pieces to free the world from what they considered * delusion. When the Abo- 
litionists proclaim "man-stealing" to be a sin, and show me that it is so written down 
by God, I admit them to be right, and shudder at the idea of such a crime. But when 
I show them that to hold "bond-men forever" is ordained by God, they deny the 
Bible, and set up in its phre a Law of their own making. I must then cease to rea- 
son with them on this branch of the question. Our religion differs as widely as our 
manners. The Great Judge in our day of final account must decide between us. 

Turning from the consideration of slave-holding in its relations to man as an ac- 
countable being, let us examine it in its influence on his political and social state. 
Though, being foreigners to us, you are in no wise entitled to interfere with the 
civil institutions of this country; it has become quite common for your countrymen to 
decry slavery as an enormous political evil to us, and even to declare that our North- 
em States ought to withdraw from the Confederacy rather than continue to be con- 
taminated by if. The American Abolitionists appear to concur fully in these senti- 
ments, and a portion at least of them are incessantly threatening to dissolve the 
Union. Nor should I be at all surprised if they succeed. It would not be difficult 
in my opinion, to conjecture which region, the North or the South, would suffer most 
by such an event. For one, 1 should not object, by any means, to cast my lot in a 
confederacy of States whose citizens might all be slave-holders. I indorse without 
reserve, the tnuch abused sentiment of Gov. M'Duffie, that "slavery is the corner 
stone of our republican edifice;" while I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much 
lauded but no where accredited dogma, of Mr. Jefferson, that "all men are born 
equal." No Society has ever yet existed, and I have already' incidentally quoted the 
highest authority to show that none ever will exist, without a natural variety of class- 
es. The most marked of these must in a coimtry like ours, be the rich and the 
poor, the educated and the ignorant. It will scarcely be disputed that the very poor 
have less leisure to prepare themselves for the proper discharge of public duties than 
the rich; and that the ignorant are wholly unfit lor them at all. In all countries save 
ours, these two classes, or the poor rather, who are presumed to be necessarily igno- 
rant, are by law expressly excluded from all participation in the management of 
public affairs. In a repudlican Government this cannot be done. Universal suffrage, 



6 Gov. Hammond^s Letters on Southern Slavenj, 

though not essential in theory, seems to he in fact, a necessary appendage to a repub- 
lican system. Where universal suffrage obtains, it is obvious that the Government 
is in the hands of a numerical majority: and it is hardly necessary to say, that in 
every part of the world more than half the people are ignorant and poor. Though no 
one can look upon poverty as a crime, and we do not generally here regard it as any 
objection to a man in his individual capacity, still it must be admitted that it is a 
wretched and insecure government which is administered by its most ignorant citi- 
zens, and those who have the least at stake under it. Though intelligence and 
wealth have great influence here as everywhere, in keeping in check reckless and 
unenlightened numbers, yet it is evident to close observers, if not to all, that these are 
rapidly usurping all power in the non-slave-holding States, and threaten a fearful 
crisis in Republican Institutions there at no remote period. In the slave-holding 
States, however, nearly one half of the whole population, and those the poorest and 
most ignorant, have no political influence whatever, because they are slaves. Of 
the other half, a large proportion are both educated and independent in their circum- 
stances, while those who unfortunately are not so, being still elevated far above the 
mass, are higher toned and more deeply interested in preserving a stable and well 
ordered government, than the same class in any other country. Hence, slavery if* 
truly the "corner stone" and foundation of every well designed and durable "Repub- 
lican edifice." 

With us, every citizen is concerned in the maintenance of order, and in promoting 
honesty and industry among those of the lowest class who are our slaves; and our 
habitual vigilance renders standing a,rmies, whether of soldiers or policemen, entire- 
ly unnecessary. Small guards in our cities, and occasional patrols in the country, 
ensure us a repose and security known no where else. You cannot be ignorant that 
excepting the United States, there is no country in the world whose existing Govern- 
ment would not bo overturned in a month, but for its standing armies, maintained at 
an enormous and destructive cost to those whom they are destined to over-awe — so 
rampant and combatant is the spirit of discontent wherever nominal Free labor pre- 
vails, with its extensive privileges and its dismal servitude. Nor will it be long before 
the "Free -Stetes" of this Union will be compelled to introduce the sanie expensive 
machinery to preserve order among their "free and equal" citizens. Already has 
Philadelphia organized a permanent Battalion for this purpose: New York, Boston 
and Cincinnati will soon follow her example; and then the smaller towns and dense- 
ly populated counties. The intervention of the militia to repress violations of the 
peace is becoming a daily affair. A strong Government, after some of the old fashions 
— though probably with a new name — sustained by the force of armed mercenaries, 
is the ultimate destiny of the non-slave-holding section of this confederacy, and one 
which may not be very distant. 

It is a great mistake to suppose, as is generally done abroad, that in case of war 
slavery would be a source of weakness. It did not weaken Rome, nor Athens, nor 
Sparta, though their slaves were comparatively far more numerous than ours, of the 
same color for the most part with themselves, and large numbers of them familiar with 
the use of arms. I have no apprehension that our slaves would seize sucli an oppor- 
tunity to revolt. The present generation, of them born among us, would never think 
of such a thing at any time, unless instigated to it by others. Against such instigations 
wc are on our guard. In time of war we should be more watchful and better prepared to 
put down insurrections than at any other peiiods. Should any foreign nation be so lost 
to every sentiment of civilized humanitv, as to attempt to erect among us the standard 
of revolt, or to invade us with Black Troops, for the base and barbarous purpose of 
stirring up servile war, their efforts would be signally rebuked. Our slaves could not 
be easily seduced, nor would any thing delight them more than to assist in stripping 
Cuffee of his regimentals to put him in the cotton-field, which would be the fate of 
most invaders, without any very prolix form of "apprenticeship." If, as I am satisfied 
would be the case, our slaves remained peacefully on our plantations, and cultivated 
them in time of war, imder the superintendance of a limited number of our citizens, it 
is obvious that we could put forth more strength in such an emergency, at less sacrifice, 
than any other people of the same numbers. And thus we should in every point of 
view, "out of this nettle danger, pluck the flower of safety," 



Gov. HdmmondJs Letters on SoiUlmrn Slavejy. 7 

How far slavery may be an advantage or disadvantage to those not owning slaves, 
yet united with us in political associations, is a question for their sole consideration. 
It is true that our Representation in Congress is increased by it. But so are our 
Taxes; and the non-slave-holding States being the majority, divide among themselves 
far the greater portion of the amount levied by the Federal Government. And I 
doubt not that when it comes to a close calculation, they will not be slow in finding 
out that the balance of profit arising from the connection is vastly in their favor. 



IVo. 3. 

Slavery in its Social Effects — Duelling — Mobs — Repudiation — Licentiousness. Com- 
parative Expense of Free and Slave Labor. Treatment of Slaves— Instruction — ■ 
Punishments. 

In a social point of view, the Abolitionists pronounce slavery to be a monstrous 
evil. If it Avas so, it would be our own peculiar concern, and superfluous benevolence 
in them to lament over it. Seeing their bitter hostility to us, however, they might leave 
us to cope with our own calamities. But they make war upon us out of excess of 
charity, and attempt to purify us by covering us with calumny. You have read and 
assisted to circulate a great deal about aflrays, duels and murders occurring here, and 
all attributed to the terrible demoralization of slavery. Not a single event of this 
sort takes place among us, but it is caught up by the Abolitionists and paraded over 
the world with endless comments, variations and exaggerations. You should not, 
take what reaches you as a mere sample, and infer that there is a vast deal more that 
you never hear. You hear all, and more than all the tiuth. 

It is true that the point of honor is recognized throughout the slave region, and the 
disputes of certain classes are frequently referred for adjustment to the "trial by 
combat." It would not be appropriate for me to enter, in this letter, into a defence 
of the practice of duelling, nor to maintain at length that it does not tarnish the char- 
acter of a people to acknowledge a standard of honor. Whatever evils may arise 
from them, howe%'er, they cannot be attributed to slavery, since the same notion and 
custom prevails both in France and England. Few of your Prime Ministers, of the 
last half century even, have escaped the contagion, I believe. The affrays, of which 
so much is said, and in which rifles, bowie-knives and pistols are so prominent, oc- 
cur mostly in the Frontier States of the South- West. They are naturally inciden- 
tal to the condition of society, as it exists in many sections of these recently settled 
countries, and will as naturally cease in due time. Adventurers from the older 
States and from Europe, as desperate in character as they are in fortune, congre- 
gate in these wild regions, jostling one another and often forcing the peaceable 
and honest into rencounters in self-defence. Slavery has nothing to do with these 
things. Stability and peace is the first desires of every slave-holder, and the true 
tendency of the system. It could not possiffly exist amid the eternal anarchy and 
civil broils of the ancient Spanish dominions in America. And tor this very reason, 
domestic slavery has ceased there. So far from encouraging strife, such scenes of 
riot and bloodshed as have within the few years disgraced our Northern cities, and 
as you have lately witnessed in Birmingham, and Bristol, and Wales, not only never 
have occurred, but I will venture to say never will occur in our slaveholding State::. 
The only thing that can create a mob (as you might call if) here, is the appearance 
of an Abolitionist whom the people assemble to chastise. And this is no more of a 
mob, than a rally of shepherds to chase a wolfout of their pastures, would be one. 

But we are swindlers and repudiators! Pennsylvania is not a slave State. A ma- 
jority of the States which have failed to meet their obligations punctually are non- 
slaveholding; and two-thirds the debt said to be repudiated is owed by these States. 
Many of the States of this Union are heavily encumbered with debt — none so hope- 
lessly as England. Pennsylvania owes S22 for each inhabitant — England, $222, 
counting her paupers in. Nor has there been any repudiation definite and final, of 
a lawful debt, that I am aware of. A few States have failed to pay some instal- 
ments of interest. The extraordinary financial difficulties which occurred a few 



8 Gov. Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery. 

years ago account for it. Time will set all things right again. Every dollar, of 
both principal and interest, owed by any State, North or South, will be ultimately 
paid, unless the abolition of slavery overwhelm us in one common ruin. But have no 
other nations failed to pay? When were the French Assignats redeemed? How 
much interest did your National Bank pay on its immense circulation from 1797 to 
1821, during which period, that circulation was inconvertible, and for the time 
repudiated? How much of your National Debt has been incurred for money bor- 
rowed to meet the interest on it, thus avoiding delinquency in detail, by insuring in- 
eritable bankruptcy and repudiation in the end? And what sort of operation was 
that by which your present Ministry recently expunged a handsome amount of that 
debt by substituting, through a process just, not compulsory, one species of security 
for another? I am well aware that the faults of others do not excuse our own, but 
when failings are charged to slavery, which are shown to occur to equal extent 
where it does not exist, surely slavery must be acquited of the accusation. 

It is roundly asserted, that we are not so well educated nor so religious here as 
elsewhere. I will not go into tedious satistical statements on these subjects. Nor 
have I, to tell the truth, much confidence in the details of what are commonly set 
forth as statistics. As to education, you will probably admit that slaveholders should 
have more leisure for mental culture than most people. And I believe it is charged 
against them that they :\re peculiarly fond of power, and ambitious of honors. If this 
be so, as all the power and honors of this country are won mainly by intellectual 
superiority, it might be fairly presumed that slaveholders would not be neglectful of 
^education. In proof of the accuracy of this presurtiption, I point you to the facts, that 
'our Presidential chair has been occupied for forty-four out of fifty-six years by slave- 
holders; that another has been recently elected to fill it for four more, over an oppo- 
nent who was a slaveholder also; and that in the Federal offices and both Houses of 
Congress considerally more than a due proportion of those acknowledged to stand 
in the first rank are from the South. In this arena the intellects of the free and 
slave States meet in full and fair competition. Nature must have been unusually 
bountiful to us, or we ^ave been at least reasonably assiduous in the cultivation of 
such gifts as she has bestowed — unless indeed you refer our superiority to moral 
qualities, which I am sure you will not. More wealthy we are not; nor would mere 
Avealth avail in such rivalry. 

The piety of the South is unobtrusive. We think it proves but little, though it is 
a confident" thing for a man to claim that he stands higher in the estimation of his 
Creator, and is less a sinner than his neighbor. If vociferation is to cary the ques- 
tion of religion, the North and probably the Scotch have it. Our sects are few, 
harmonious, pretty much united among themselves, and pursue their vocations in hum- 
ble peace. In fact our professors of religion seem to think — whether correctly or 
not — that it is their duty "to do good in secret," and to carry their holy comforts to the 
heart of each individual, without reference to class or fo7or, for his special enjoyment, 
and not with a view to exhibit their zeal before the world. So far as numbers are 
concerned, I believe our clergymen, when called on to make a showing, have never 
had occasion to blush, if comparisons were drawn between the free and slave States. 
And although our presses do not team with controversial pamphlets, nor our pulpits 
shake with excommunicating thunders, the daily walk of our religious communicants 
furnishes apparently as little food for gossip as is to be found in most other religions. 
It may be regarded as a mark of our want of excitability — though that is a quality ac- 
credited to us in an eminent degree — that few of the remarkable religious /*m.s of the 
present day have taken root among us. We have been so irreverent as to laugh at 
Mormonism and Millerism, which have created such commotions farther North; and 
modern Prophets have no honor in our country. Shakers, Rappists, Dunkers, Social- 
ists, Fourrierists and the like keep themselves afar of?'. Even Puseyism has not yet 
moved us. You may attribute this to our domestic slavery if you chose. I believe 
you would do so justly. There is no material here for such characters to operate upon 

But your grand charge is that licentiousness in intercourse between the sexes is a 
prominent trait of our social system, and that it neces.-^arily arises from slavery. This 
is a favorite theme with the Abolitionists, male and female. Folios have been writ- 



Gov. Hammondls Letters on Southern Slavery. 9 

ten on it. It is a common observation, that there is no subject of which ladies of 
eminent virtue so much delight to dwell, and on which in especial learned old maids, 
like Miss Martineau, linger with such an insatiable relish. They expose it in the 
Slave States with the most minute observance and endless iteration. Miss Martineau 
with peculiar gusto, relates a series of scandalous stories which would have made 
Boccacio jealous of her pen, but which are so ridiculously false, as to leave no doubt 
that some wicked wag, knowing she would Avrite a book, has furnished her materials 
— a game too often played on Tourists in this country. The constant recurrence of 
the female Abolitionists to this topic, and their bitterness in regard to it, cannot fail 
to suggest to even the most charitable mind, that 

"Such rage withont, betrays the fires within." 

Nor are their immaculate coadjutors of the other sex, though perhaps less specific 
in their charges, less violent in their denunciations. But recently in your Island a 
clergyman has, at a public meeting, stigmatized the whole Slave region as a "Brothel." 
Do these people thus cast stones being "without sin"? Or do they only 

"Compound for sins they are inclined to, 
By damning those they have no mind to." 

Alas that David and Solomon should be allowed to repose in peace — that Leo should 
be almost canonized, and Luther more than sainted; that in our own day courtezans 
should be formally licensed in Paris, and tenements in London rented for years to 
women of the town for the benefit of the Church with the knowledge of the Bishop 
— and the poor Slave States of America alone pounced upon and offered up as a 
holocaust on the Altar of Immaculateness to atone for the abuse of natural instinct 
by all mankind; and if not actually consumed, at least exposed, anathemized and 
held up to scorn, by those who 

"write, 
Or with a Rival's or an Eunuch's spite." 

But I do not intend to admit that this charge is just or true. Without meaning to 
profess uncommon modesty, I will say that I wish this topic could be avoided. 
I am of opinion, and I doubt not every right-minded man will concur, that the public 
exposure and discussion of this vice, even to rebuke, invariably does more harm than 
good; and that if it cannot be checked, by instilling pure and virtuous sentiments, it 
is far w.n-se than useless to attempt to do it, by exhibiting its deformities. I may not. 
however, pass it over: nor ought I feel any delicacy in examining a question to 
which the Slave-holder is invited and challenged by Clergymen and Virgins. So 
far from allowing, then, that licentiousness pervades this region, I broadly assert, 
and I refer to the records of the Courts, to the public press, and to the knowledge of 
all who have ever lived here, that among our white population, there are fewer cases 
of divorce, separation, crim con, seduction, rape and bastardy, than among any other 
five millions of people on the civilized earth. And this fact I believe will be con- 
ceded by the Abolitionists of this countr} themselves. I am almost willing to refer 
it to them and submit to their decision on it. I would not hesitate to do so if I 
thought them capable of an impcirtial judgment on any matter where Slavery is in 
question. But it is said, that the licentiousness consists in the constant intercourse 
between white males and colored females. One of your heavy charges against us 
has been that we regard and treat these people as brutes; you now charge us with 
habitually taking them to our bosoms, 1 will not comment on thv inconsistency of 
these accusations. [ will not deny that some intercourse of the sort does take place. 
Its character and extent, however, are grossly and atrociously exaggerated. No 
authority, divine or human, has yet been found sufficient to arrest all such irregularities 
among men. But it is a known fact, that they are perpetrated here, for the most part 
in the cities. Very few mula.toes are reared on our plantations. In the cities a 
large proportion of the inhabitants do not own slaves. A still larger proportion are 
natives of the North or foreigners. They should share, and justly, too, an equal part 
in this sin with the Slave-holders. Facts cannot be ascertained, or I doubt not, it 
would appear that they are the chief offenders. If the truth be otherwise, that per- 
sons from abroad have stronger prejudices against the African race than we have. 



10 Gs>v, ffammond/s Letters on Southern Slavery. 

Be this as it may, it is well known that this intercourse is regarded in our society as 
highly disreputable. If carried on habitually, it seriously affects a man's standing, 
so far as it is known; and he who takes a colored mistress — with rare and extraor- 
dinary exceptions — loses caste at once. You will say that one exception should damn 
our whole country. How much less criminal is it to take a white mistress! In your 
eyes it should be at least an equal offence. Yet look around you at home, from the 
cottage to the throne, and count how many mistresses are kept in unblushin*.' noto- 
riety, without any loss of caste. Such cases are almost unknown here, and down even 
to the very lowest walks of life it is almost invariably fatal to a man's position and pros- 
pects to keep a mistress openly whether white or black. What Miss Martineau re- 
lates of a young man's purchasing a colored concubine from a lady and avowing his 
designs, is too absurd even for contradiction. No person would dare to allude to 
such a subject in such a manner to any decent female in this country. If he did, he 
would be lynched — doubtless with your approbation. 

After all, however, the number ot the mixed breed in proportion to that of the 
black is infinitely small, and out of the towns next to nothing. And when it is con- 
sidered that the African race has been among us tor two hundred years, and that 
those of the mixed breed continually intermarry — often rearing large families — it is 
a decided proof of our continence that so few comparatively are to be found. Our 
misfortunes are two-fold. From the prolific propagation of these mongrels among 
themselves, we are liable to be charged by tourists with delinquences where none 
have been committed, while, where one has been, it cannot be concealed. Color 
marks indellibly the offence, and reveals it to every eye Conceive that, even in 
your virtuous and polished country, if every bastard through all the circles of your so- 
cial system was thus branded by nature and known to all, what shocking developments 
might there not be? How little indignation might your saints have to spare lor the 
licentiousness of the slave region. But I have done with this disgusting topic. And I 
think I may justly conclude, after all the scandalous charges which tea-table gossip and 
long-g owned hypocrisy have brought against the slave-holders, that a people whose 
men are proverbially brave, intellectual and hospitable, and whose women are unaf- 
fectedly chaste, devoted to domestic life and happy in it, can neither be degraded nor 
demoralized, whatever their institutions may be. My decided opinion is, that our 
system of slavery contributes largely to the development and culture of these high and 
noble qualities. 

In an economical point of view — which I will not omit — Slavery presents some 
difficulties. As a general rule, I agree it must be admitted, that free labor is cheaper 
than slave labor. It is a fallacy to suppose that ours is unpaid labor. The slave 
himself must be paid for, and thus his labor is all purchased ai once, and for no trifling 
sum. His price was in the first place paid mostly to your countrymen, and assisted 
in building up some of those colossal English fortunes since illustrated by patents of 
nobility, and splendid piles of architecture, stained and cemented, if you like the ex- 
pression, with the blood of kidnapped innocents; but loaded with no heavier curse 
than Abolition and its begotten fanaticisms have brought upon your land — some of 
them fulfilled, some yet to be. But besides the first cost of the slave, he must be fed 
and clothed; well fed and well clothed, if not for humanity's sake, that he may do 
good work, retain health and life, and rear a family to supply his place. When old 
or sick, he is a clear expense, and so is the helpless portion of hii family. No poor 
law provides for him when unable to work, or brings up his children for our service 
when we need them. These are all heavy charges on slave labor. Hence, in all 
countries where the denscness of the population has reduced it to a matter of perfect 
certainty th it labor can be obtained whenever wanted, and the laborer be forced by 
sheer necessity to hire for the small pittance that will keep soul and body together, 
and rags upon his back while in actual employment, dependant at all other times on 
alms or poor rates; in all such countries it is found cheaper to pay this pittance than 
to clothe, feed, nurse, su|)port through childhood, and pension in old age a race of 
slaves. Indeed, the advantage is so great as speedily to compensate for the loss of 
the value ofthe slave. And I have no hesitation in saying, that if I could cultivate 
my lands on these terms, I would without a word resign my slaves, provided they 



Gov. Hammond's Letters on Southern SUwery, 11 

could be properly disposed of. But the question is, whether free or slave labor is 
cheapest to us in this country at this time, situated as we are. And it is decided at 
once by the fact, that we cannot avail ourselves of any other than slave labor. We 
neither have nor can we procure other labor to any extent, or on any thing like the 
terms mentioned. We must therefore content ourselves with our dear labor, under 
the consoling reflection that what is lost to us, is gain to humanity; and that inas. 
much as our slave costs u* more than your free man costs you, by so much is he 
better oft! You will promptly say, emancipate your slaves, and then you will have 
free labor on suitable terms. That might be, if there were five hundred where 
there is now one, and the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, was as densely 
populated as your Island. But until that comes to pass, no labor can be procured in 
America on the terms you have it. 

While I thus freely admit that to the individual proprietor slave labor is dearer 
than free, I do not mean to admit it as equally clear that it is dearer to the communi- 
ty and to the State. Though it is certain that thi> slave is a far greater consumer 
than your laborer, the year round, yet your pauper system is costly and wtisteful. 
Supported by your community at large, it is not administered by your hired agents 
with that interested care and economy — not to speak of liumanity — which mark the 
management of ours by each proprietor for his non»eflectives. and is both more ex- 
pensive to those who puy, and less beneficial to those who receive its bounties. Be- 
sides this. Slavery is rapidly filling up our country with a hardy and healthy race, 
peculiarly adapted to our climate and productions, and conferring signal political and 
social advantages on us as a people, to which I have already referred. 

I have yet to reply to the main ground on which you and your coadjutors rely for 
the overthrow of our system of slavery. Failing in all your attempts to prove that it 
is sinful in its nature, immoral in its eflects, a political evil, and profitless to those 
who maintain it, you appeal to the sympathies of mankind, and attempt to arouse the 
world .-igainst us by the most shocking charges of tyranny and cruelty. You begin 
by a vehement denunciation of "the irresponsible power of one man over his fellow- 
men." The question of the responsibility of power is a vast one. I* is the great 
political question (jf modern times. Whole nations divide off upon it and establish 
diftcrent tundamental systems of government. That "responsibility," which to one 
set of millions seems amply sufficietit to check the government, to the support of 
which they devote their lives and fortunes, appears to another set of millions a mere 
mockery of restraint. And accordingly ;is the opinions of these millions differ, they 
honor each other with the epithets of "Serfs" or "Anarchists." It is ridiculous to 
introduce such an idea as this into the discussion of a mere Domestic Institution. 
But since you have introduced it, I deny that the power of the slaveholder in America 
is "irresponsible." He is responsible to God. He is responsible to the world — a 
responsibility which Abolitionists do not intend to allow him to evade — and in acknow- 
ledgment of which I write you this letter, lie is responsible to the community in 
which he lives, and to the laws under which he enjoys his civil rights. Those laws 
do not permit him to kil, to maim, or to piuiish beyond certain limits, or to overtask 
or to refu.se to feed and clothe his slave. In short, they forbid him to be tyrannical 
or cruel, if any of these laws have grown obselete, it is because they are so vseldom 
violated that they arejbrgotten. You have disinterred one of them from a compila- 
tion by some Judge Stroud, of Philapelphia, to sligm:itize its inadequate penalties for 
killing, maiming, &c. Your objects appears to be — you can have no other — to pro- 
duce the impression that it must be often violated on account of its insufficiency. You 
say as much, and that it marks our estimate of the slave. You forget to state that this 
law was enacted by Enf^Ushmen, and only indicates their opinion of the reparation 
due for ihese offunces. Ours is proved by the fact, though perhaps unknown to Judge 
Str.)UU or yourself, that we have essentially altered this law; and the murder of a 
slave has for many years been punishable with death in this Stale. And so it is, I 
believe, in most or' all the slave States. You seem well aware, however, that laws 
have been recently passed in all these States makin" it penal to teach slaves to read. 
Do you know wluit occasioned their passage, and renders their stringent enforcement 
necessary. I can tell you: it was the abolition agitation. If the slave is not allowed 



12 Gov. Hammond^ s Letters on Southern Slavery. 

to read his Bible, the sin rests upon the Abolitionists; for they stand prepared to fur- 
nish him with a key to it, which would make it, not a book of hope and love and peace, 
but of despair, hatred and blood; which would convert the reader, not into a Chris- 
tian but a Demon. To preserve him from such a horrid destiny, it is a sacred duty 
which we owe to slaves, not less than to ourselves, to interpose the most decisive 
means. If the Catholics deem it wrong to trust the Bible to the hands of ignorance, 
shall we be excommunicated because we will not give and with it the corrupt and fa- 
tal commentarieg of the Abolitionists, to our slaves? Allow our slaves to read your 
pamphlets, stimulating them to cut our throats! Can you believe us to be such un- 
speak able fools. 

I do not know that I can subscribe in full to the sentiment so often quoted by the 
Abolitionists, and by Mr. Dickenson in his letter to me: ^'Homo sum et nihil human- 
um a me alienum pufo,'' as translated and practically illustrated by them. Such a 
doctrine would give wide authority to everyone for the most dangerous intermeddling 
with the affairs of others. It will do in poetry — perhaps in some sort of philosophy; 
but the attempt to make it a household maxim, and introduce it into the daily walks 
of life, has caused many an "Homo" a broken crown; and probably will continue to 
do it. Still though a slaveholder, I freely acknowledge my obligations as a man; 
and that I am bound to treat humanely the fellow creatures whom God has trusted to 
my charge. I feel therefore somewhat sensitive under the accusation of cruelty, and 
disposed to defend myself and fellow slaveholders against it. It is certainly the in- 
terest of all, and I am convinced that it is also the desire of every one of us, to treat our 
slaves with proper kindness. It is necessary to our deriving the greatest amount of 
profit from them. Of this we are all satisfied. And you snatch from us the only 
consolation we Americans could derive from the approbiious imputation of being 
wholly devoted to making money, which your disinterested and gold-despising coun- 
trynicn delight to cast upon us, when you nevertheless declare, that we are ready to 
sacrifice it for the pleasure of being inhuman. You remember that Mr. Pitt, could 
never get over the idea that self-interest would insure kind treatment to slaves, until 
you told him your woful stories of the Middle Passage. Mr. Pitt was right in the 
first instance, and erred, under your tuition, in not perceiving the difference between 
a temporary and permanent ownership of them. Slave-holders are no more perfect 
than other men. They hav^ passions. Some of tlipm as you may suppose, do not 
at all times restrain them. Neither do husbands, parents and friends. And in each 
of these relations, as serious sufferings as frequently arise from uncontrolled passions 
as ever does in that of master and slave, and with as little chance of indemniiy. Yet 
you would not on that account break them up. I have no iiesitauon in saying that 
out slave holders are as kind masters, as men usually are kind husbands, parents and 
friends — as a general rule, kinder. A bad master — he who overworks his slaves, 
provides illy for them, or treats them with undue severity — loses the esteem and res- 
pect of his fellow citizens to as great an extent, as he would for the violation of any 
of his social and most of his moral obligations. What the most perfect plan of 
managemenl would be is a problem hnrd to solve. From the commencement of sla. 
very in this country, tiiis subject has occupied the minds of all slave-holders, as 
much as the improvement of the general condition of mankind has those of the most 
ardent Philanthropists; and the greatest progressive amelioration of the system has 
been effected. You yourself acknowledge that in the early part of your career you 
were exceedingly anxious for the immediate abolition of the slave trade, last those 
engaged in it should so mitigate its evils as to destroy the force of your arguments 
and facts. The improvement you then dreaded has gone on steadily here, and 
would doubtless have taken place in the slave trade but lor the measures adopted to 
suppress it 

Of late years we have been not only annoyed, but generally greatly embarrassed 
in this matter, by the abolitionists. We have been compelled to curtail some privi- 
leges; we have been debarred from griinling new ones. In the face of discussion, 
which aim at loosening all ties between masier and slave, we have in some measure 
to abandon our efforts to attach them to us and control them through their aflections 
and pride. VVe have to rely more and more on the power of fear. VVe must in all 



Gai). Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery. 13 

our Intercourse with them assert and maintain strict mastery, and impress it on them 
that they are slaves. This is painful to us, and certainly no present odvantage to 
them. But it is the direct consequence of the abolilion agitation. We are determined 
lo continue masters, and to do so we have to draw the rein lighter and tighter day by 
day, to be assured that we keep them in complete check. How far ihis piocess 
will go on depends wholly and solely on the abolitionists. When they desist we can 
rv^lax. We may not before, I do not mean by all this, lo say that we arc in a state 
of actual alarm and fear of our slaves; but under existing circumstances, we should 
be. ineffably stupid not to increase our vigilance and strengthen our hands. You see 
some of the fruits of your labors. 1 speak freely and candidly — not as a colonist, 
who, though a slave-holder has a master; but as a free while man, holding under 
God, and resolved to hold, my tale in my own hands; and I assure you ihat my sen- 
timents and feelings and determinations are those of every slave-holder in this country. 
The research and ingenuity of the Abolitionists, aided by the invention of runaway 
slaves — in which faculty, so far as improvising falsehood goes, the African race is 
without a rival — have succeeded in shocking the world with a small number of pre- 
tended instances of our barbarity. The only wonder is tiiat, considering the extent 
of our country, the variety of our population, its fluctuating character, and the publi. 
city of all our transactions, the number of cases collected is so small. It soeaks well 
for us. Yet of these, many are false, all highly colored, some occurring half a cen- 
tury, most of them many years ago; and no doubt a large proportion of them perpe- 
trated by foreigners. With a few rare exceptions the emigrant Scotch and English 
are the worst masters among us, and next to them our Northern fellow citizens. 
Slave-holders born and bred here, are always more humane to Slaves, and those who 
have grown up to a large inheritance of them, the most so of any — showing clearly 
that the effect of the system, is to foster kindly feelings. I do not mean so much to 
impute innate inhumanity to foreigners, ns to show that they come here with false 
notions of the treatment usual and necessary for slaves, and that newly acquired 
power here, as every whore else, is apt to be abused. I cannot enter into a detailed 
examination of the cases stated by the Abolitionists. It would be disgusting and of 
liltle avail. I know nothing of them. I have seen nothing like them, though born 
and bred here, and have rarely heard of any thing at all to be compared with them. 
Permit me to say that I think most oi your facts must have been drawn from the 
West Indies, where undoubtedly slaves were treated much more harshly than with 
usi This was owing to a variety of causes, which might, if necessary be stated. 
One was that tSiey had at first to deal more extensively with barbarians fresh from 
the wilds of Africa; another, and a leading one, the absenteeism of Proprietors. Agents 
are always more unfeeling than owners, whether placed over West Indian, or Ame- 
rican Slaves, or Irish Tenantry. We feel this evil greatly, even here. You des- 
cribe the use of Ihtimb screws as one mode of punishment among us. I doubt if a 
thumb screw can be found in -\merica. I never saw or heard of one in this country. 
Stocks are rarely used by private individuals, and confinement still more seldom, 
though both are common punishments for whites all the world over. I tiiink they 
should be more frequently resorted to with slaves, as substitutes for flogging, which I 
consider the most injurious and least efficacious mode of punishing tliem for serious 
offences. It is not degrading, and unless excessive, occasions little pain. You may 
be a little astonished, afierall the flourishes that have been made about "cart whips," 
ike, when I say flogging is not the most degrading punishment in the world. It may 
be so to a white man in most countries, but how is it to the white boy? That ne- 
cessary coadjutor of llieschool-master, the "birch,*' is never thought to have rendered 
infamous the unfortunate victim of pedagogue ire; nor did Solomon in his wisdom 
dream that he was counseling parents to debase their offspring, when he exhorted 
them not to spoil the child by sparing the rod. Pardon me for referring to the now 
exploded ethics of the Bible. Custom, which, you will perhaps agree, makes most 
things in this world good or evil, has removed all infamy, from the punishment of the 
lash to the slave. Your bfood boils at the recital of stripes iiiflicted on a man; and 
you think you should be frenzied to see your own child flogged. Yet see how com- 
pletely this is ideal, arising from the fashions of society. You doubtless submitted to 



/ 



14 Gw. Hammond^ s Letters on Southern Slavery. 

the rod yourself, in other years, when I ho smart was perhaps as severe as it would 
be now; and you have never been guilty of the folly of revenging yourself on the 
Preceptor, who in the plenitude of his "irresponsible power" thougnt proper to chas- 
tise your son. Soil is with the negro, and the negro father. 

As to chains and irons, they are rarely used; never ] believe, except in cases of 
running away. You must admii that if we pretend to own slaves, they must not be 
permitted to abscond whenever they see fit; and thai if nothing else will prevent it 
these means must be resorted to. See the inhumanity necessarily arising from sla. 
very, you will exclaim! Are such restraints iUiposed on no other class of people, 
giving no more offence? Look to your army and navj. If your seamen, impressed 
from their peaceful occupations, and your soldiers, recruited at the gin shops — both 
of them as much kidnapped as the most unsuspecting vic'im of the Slave Trade, and 
doomed to afar more wretched fate~-if these men manifest a propensity to desert, 
the heaviest manacles are their mildest punishment. It is most commonly death, 
after summary trial. But armies and navies you say are indispensable, and must be 
kept up at every sacrifice. I answer that they are no more indispensable than slavery 
is to us — and to you; for you have enough of it in your own country, though the form 
and name differ from ours. Depend upon ii that many things, and in regard to our 
slaves, most things which appear revolting at a distance, and to slight reflection, 
would on a nearer view and impartial comparison with the customs and conduct with 
the rest of mankind, strike you in a very different light. Remember that on our 
estates we dispense with the whole machinery of public police and public Courts of 
Justice. Thus we try, decide and execute the sentences, in thousands of cases, 
which in other countries would go into the Courts. Hence most of the acts of our 
alleged cruelty, which have any foundation in truth. Whether our Patriarchal mode 
of administering justice is less humane than the Assizes can only be determined by 
careful inquiry and comparison. But this is never done by the Abolitionists, All 
our punishments are the outrages of "irresponsible power." If a man steals a pig in 
England he is transported — torn from wife, children, parents, and sent to the Anti- 
podes, infamous, and an outcast forever, though perhaps betook from the superabun- 
dance of his neighbor to save the lives of his famishing little ones. If one of our well 
fed negroes, merely for the sake of fresh meat, steals a pig, he gets perhaps forty 
stripes. If one of your Cottagers breaks into another's house, he is hung for burglary. 
If a slave does the same here, a few lashes, or perhaps a few huurs in the stocks, 
settles the matter. Are our Courts or yours the most humane? If slavery were not 
in question, you vvonid doubtless say ours is misUikon lenity. Perhaps it often is; 
and slaves too lightly dealt with sometimes grow daring. Occasionally, though rare- 
ly, and almost always in consequence of excessive indulgence, an individual rebels. 
This is the highest crime he can commit. It is treason. It strikes at the root of 
our whole system. His life is justly forfeited, though it is never intentionally taken, 
unless after trial in our public courts. Sometimes, however, in capturing, or in self- 
defence, he is unfortunately killed. A legal investigation always follows. But, ter- 
minate as it may, the Abolitionists raise a hue and cry, and another "shocking case" 
i^ held up to the indignation of the world by tender hearted male and female Philan- 
thropists, who would have thought all right had the master's throat been cut, and 
would have triumphed in it. 



No, 3. 

Phjsical and Moral Condition of Southern Slaves compared with English Labor- 
ers. Schemes of Abolition — '■'■Moral Suasion" — Force — Competition of Free 
Labor. The Grand Upshot of West hidia Emancipation, 

Perhaps a few general facts will best illustrate the treatment this race receives at 
our hands. It is acknowledged that it is increased at least as rapidly as the white. 
1 believed it is an established principle, that population thrives in proportion to its 
comforts. But when it is considered, that these people are not recruited by immi- 
gration from abroad as the whites are, and that they are usually settled to our rich- 



Gov. Hammond^s Letto's on Southern Slavery. 15 

est and least healthy lands, the fact of their equal comparative increase and greater 
longevity, outweighs a thousand abolition falsehoods, in favor of the leniency and 
providence of our management of them. It is also admitted that there are incom- 
parably fewer cases of insanity and suicide among them than among the whites. 
The fact is, that among the slaves of the African race, these things are almost wholly 
unknown. However frequently suicide may have been among those brought from 
Africa, I can say that in my time, I cannot remember to have known or heard of a 
single instance of deliberate self-destruction, and but one of suicide at ail. As to 
insanity, I have seen but one permanent case of it, and that twenty years ago. It 
cannot be doubled that among three millions of people there must be some insane and 
some suicides; but I will venture to say, that more cases of both occur annually 
among every hundred thousand of the population of Great Britain, than among all 
our slaves. Can it be possible, then, that they exist in that state of abject misery, 
goaded by constant injuries, outraged in their affections and worn down with hard- 
ships, which the abolitionists depict, and so many ignorant and thoughtless persons re« 
ligiously believe? 

With regard to the separation of husbands and wives, parents and children, no<. 
thing can be more untrue ihan the inferences drawn from what is so constantly 
harped on by abolitionists. Some painful instances perhaps may occur: very few that 
can be prevented. It is and always has been an object of prime consideration with 
our slave-holders to keep families tcjgetlier. Negroes are themselves, both per- 
verse and comparatively indifferent about this matter. It is a singular trait, that 
they almost invariably prefer forming connexions with slaves belonging to other mas- 
ters, and at some distance. It is therefore impossible to prevent separations some- 
times, by the removal of one owner, his death, or failure, and dispersion of his pro- 
perty. In all such cases, however, every reasonable effort is made to keep the par- 
ties together, if they desire it. And the negroes forming these connexions, know- 
ing the chances of their premature dissolution, rarely complain more than we all do 
of the inevitable strokes of fate. Sometimes it happens that a negro prefers to give 
up his family ra her than separate from his master. I have known such instances. 
As to wilfully selling off a husband, or a wife, or child, I believe it is rarely, very 
rarely done, except when some offence has been committed demanding "transporta- 
tion.'' At sales of estates, and even at Sheriff's sales, they are always, if possible, 
sold in families. On the whole, notwithstanding the migratory character of our pop- 
ulation, I believe there are more families among our slaves, who have lived and died 
together, without loosing a single member from their circle, except by the process of 
nature, and in the enjoyment of constant, uninterrupted communion, than have flour- 
ished in the same space of time and among the same number of civilized people in 
modern times. And to sum up all, if pleasure is correctly defined to be the absence 
of pain — which so far as the great body of mankind is concerned, is undoubtedly its 
true definition — I believe our slaves are the happiest three millions of human beings 
on whom the sun shines. Into their Eden is coming Satan in the guise of an Aboli- 
tionist. 

As regards their religious condition, it is well known that a majority of the commu- 
nicants of Methodist and Baptist Churches of the South are colored. Almost every- 
where they have precisely the same opportunities of attending worship that the whites 
have, and besides, special occasions for themselves exclusively, which they prefer. In 
many places not so accessible to clergymen in ordinary. Missionaries are sent, and 
mainly supported by tiieir masters, for the particular benefit of the slaves. There are 
none I imagine who may not if they like, hear the gospel preached at least once a month; 
most of them twice a month, and Very many every week. In our thinly settled coiin- 
try the whiles fare no better. But in' addition to this, on the plantations of any size 
the slaves who have joined the church are formed into a class, ai the head of which 
is placed one of their number, acting as deacon or leader, who is also sometimes a 
licensed preacher. This class assembles for religious exercises weekly, semi-week- 
ly, or oftener, if the members choose. In some parts also Sunday sclu^ols for blacks 
are established, and Bible classes are orally instructed by discreet and pious persons. 
Now where will you find a laboring population possessed of greater religious advantA- 



16 Gov. Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery. 

ges than these? Not in London, I am sure, where it is known tliat your Churches, 
Chapels and Religious Meeting Houses, of all sorts, cannot contain one half of the in. 
habitants. 

I have admitted without hesitation, what it would be untrue and profitless to deny, 
that Slave-holders are responsible to the world for the humane treatment of the fellow, 
beings whom God placed in their hands. 1 think it would be only fair for you to ad- 
mit, what is equally undeniable, that every man in independent circumstances, all the 
world over, and every government, is to the same extent responsible to the whole hu- 
man family, for the condition of the poor and laboring classes in their own country and 
around them, wherever thhy may be placed, to whom God has denied the advantages 
he has given themselves. If so, it would naturally seem the duty of true humanity 
and rational philanthropy to devote their time and labor, their thoughts, writings and 
charily, first to the objects placed as it were under their own immediate charge. And 
it must be regarded as a clear evasion and sinful neglect of this cardinal duty, to pass 
from those whose destitute situation they can plainly see, minutely examine and effi- 
ciently relieve, to enquire after the condition of others in no way entrusted to their 
cai-e, to exaggerate evils of which they cannot be cognizant, to expend all their sym- 
pathies and exhaust all their energies on these remote objects of their unnatural, not 
to say dangerous, benevolence; and finally, to calumniate, denounce and endeavor to 
excite the indignation of the world against their unotTending fellow creatures for not 
hastening under their dictation to redress wrongs whicli are stoutly and truthfully de- 
nied, while they themselves go but little farther in alleviating those chargeable on 
them, than openly and unblushingly to acknowledge them. There may be indeed a 
sort of merit in doing so much as to make such an acknowledgement, but it must be 
very modest if it expects appreciation. 

Now I affirm, that in Great Britain the poor and laboring classes of your own race 
and color, not only your fellow beings, but your fellow citizens , are more miserable 
and degraded, morally and physically, than our slaves; to be elevated to the actual 
condition of whom, would be to these your fellow citizens a most glorious act of eman- 
cipation. And I also affirm, that the y)Oor and laboring classes of our older Free 
States would not be in a much more enviable condition but for our slavery. One of 
their own Senators has declared in the United States Senate, "that the repeal of the 
Tariff would reduce New England to a howling wilderness." And the American 
Tariff is neither more nor less than a system by which the Slave States are plundered 
for the benefit of those Stales which do not tolerate Slavery. 

To prove what I say of Great Britain to be true, I make the following extracts from 
the Reports of Commissioners appointed by Parliament, and published by the order 
of the House of Commons. I can make but kw and short ones. But similar quota- 
tions might be made to any extent, and I defy you to deny that these specimens do not 
exhibit the real condition of your operatives in every branch of your industry. There is a 
course of variety in their sufferings. But the same incredible amount of toil, fright- 
ful destitution, and utter want of morals, characterise the lot of every class of them. 

Collieries. ''I wish to call the attention of the Board to the pits about Brampton. 
The seams are so thin that several of them have only two feet head-way to all the work- 
ing. They are worked altogether by boys from 8 to 12 years of age, on all-fours, 
with a dog-belt and chain. The passages beikg neither ironed nor wooded, and often 
an inch or two thick with mud. In Mr. Barns' pit, these poor boys have to drag the 
barrows with one cwt. of coal or slack 60 tijnes a day 60 yards, and the empty bar- 
rows back, without once straightening their backs unless they choose to stand under 
the shaft and run the risk of having their heads broken by a falling coal." — Rep. on 
Mines^ 1842^p. 71. "In Stropshire the seams are no more than 18 or 20 inches." 
Ibid. p. 67. "At the Booth pit," says Mr. Scriven, "I walked, rode and crept 1800 
yards to one of the nearest faces." — Ibid. "Chokedamp," "Firedam,"" Wild fire," 
"Sulphur" and "Water" at all times menaced instant death to the laborers in these 
mines." Robert North, aged 16: Went into the pit at 7 years of age, to fill up skips. 
1 drew about 12 months. When I drew by the girdle and chain my skin was broken, 
and the blood ran down. I durst not say anything. If we said anything, the butty, 
and the revee who works under him, would take a stick and beat us."= — Ibid. "The 



Gov. Ifanwiond's Letters on Soathern Slavery. 17 

Usual punishment for iheft, is to place the culprit's head between the legs of one of 
the biggest boys, and each boy in the pit — sometimes there are 20 — indicts 12 lashes 
on the back and rump with a cat." — Ibid. "Instances occur in vvliich children are 
taken into these mines to work as early as 4 years of age, sometimes at, 5, not unfre- 
quently at 6 and 7, while from 8 to 9, is the ordinary age at which these employments 
commence." — Ihid. The wages paid at these Mines is from $2 50 to $7 .50 per 
month for laborers accor ing to age f*nd ability, and out of this they must suppoit 
tliemselves. They work 12 hours a day. — Ibid. 

In Calico Printing. It is by no means uncommon in all the districts for children 
5 or 6 years old to be kept 14 to 16 hours consecutively.'' Rep. on Children, 1842, 
p. .59. 

I could furnish extracts similar to these in regard to every branch of your manu- 
factures, but I will not multiply them. Every body knows that your operatives habit- 
ually labor from 12 to 16 hours, men, women and children, and the men occasionally 
20 hours per day. In lace making, says tiie last quoted Report, children sometimes 
commence work at 2 years of age. 

Destitution, It is stated byyour Commissioners, that 40,000 persons in Liverpool, 
and 15,000 in Manchester, live in cellers; while 22,000 in England pass the night 
in barns, tents, or the open air. "There have been found such occurrences as 7, 8 
and 10 persons in one cottage, I cannot say for one day, but for whole days, without 
a morsel of food. They have remained in their beds of straw for two successive days, 
under the impression that in a recumbent posture the pangs of hunger were less felt." 
Lord Brougham'' s Speech, July \ I, 1812. A volume of frightful scenes might ba 
quoted to corrobjrate the inferences to be necessarily drawn from the facts here sta- 
ted. I will not add mcn-e, but pass on to the important inquiry, as to 

Morals and Education. — Elizabeth Barrett, aged 14. I always work without stock- 
ings, shoes or trowsers. 1 wear nothing but a slnft. I have to go up to ihe headings 
with the men. They are all naked there. I am got used to that." Report 07i Mines. 
"As to illicit se.xual intercourse, it seems to prevail universally and from an early 
period of life." "The evidence might have been doubted which attest the early com- 
mencement of sexual and promiscuous intercourse among boys and girLs." A lower 
condition of morals in the fullest sense of the term, could not I think be found. I do 
not mean by this that there are many more prominent vices among them, but that 
moral feelings and sentiments do not exist. They have no morals.'^ "Their appear- 
ance, manners and moral natures — so far as the word moral can be applied to them, 
are in accordance with their half civilized condition." — Rep. on Children. "More 
than half a dozen instances occurred in Manchester, where a man, his wife, and his 
wife's grown up sister, habitually occupied the same bed. — Report on Sanitary Condi- 
tion. Robert Churchillou', aged 16: "1 do not know anything o. Moses — never heard 
of France. I dont know what America is. Never heard of Scotland or Ireland. 
Cant tell how many weeks there are in a year. There 12 pence in a sliilling, and 
20 shillings in a pound. There are eight pints in a gallon of ale."^~i2sp. on Mines. 
Ann Eggly aged IS. "I walk about and get fresh air on Sundays. I never go to 
Church or Cliapel. I never heard of Cluist at all." Ibid. Others: "The Lord sent 
Adam and Eve on earth to save sinners." "I dont know who made the world, I 
never heard about God." I dont know Jesus Christ---I never saw him — but I have 
seen Foster who prays about him." Employer: "You have ex|)ressed surprise at 
Thomas Mitchel's not hearing of God. 1 judge there are few Colliers here about 
that have." Ibid. I will quote no more. It is shocking beyond endurance to turn 
over your Records in which the condition of your laboring classes is but too faithfully 
depicted. Could our slaves but see it, they would join us in Lyncdiing Abolitionists, 
which, by the by, they would not now be loth to. do. Wts never think of imposing on 
them such labor, either in amount or kind. We never put them to any work under 
ten, more generally at twelve years of age, and then the very slightest. Destitution 
is absolutely unknown; never did a slave starve in America; while in moral senti- 
ments and feelings, in religious information, and even in general- intelligence they 
are infinitely the superiors of your operatives. When you look around you how dare 
you talk to us before the world of slavery? For the condition of your wretched labo- 



18 Gov. Hammond! s Lettefrs on Southern Staceiy. 

rer3,-you, and every Britain who is not one of them, are responsible before God and 
man. If you are really humane, philanthropic and cliaritable, liere are objects for 
you. Relieve them. EiYiancipate them. Raise them from the condition of brutes, 
to the level of human beings; of American slaves at least. Do not for an instant 
snppose, that the name of being freemen is the slightest comfort to them, situated as 
they are, or that the bombastic boast that "whoever touches British soil stands re- 
deemed, regenerated aud disenthralled," can meet with any thing but the ridicule and 
contempt of mankind, while that soil swarms, both on and under its surface, with the 
most abject and degraded wretches that ever bowed beneath the oppressor's yoke. 

I have said that slavery is an established and inevitable condition of human society. 
I do not speak of the name, but \hefact. The Marquis of Normandy has lately de- 
clared your operatives to be "wj effect slaves." Can it be denied? Probably, for 
such Philanthropists as your Abolitionists care nothing for facts. They deal in terms 
aud fictions. It is the word "slavery" which shocks iheir tender sensibilities; and 
their imaginations associate it with "hydras and chimeras dire." The thing itself, 
in its most hideous reality, passes daily under their view unheeded — a familiar face, 
touching no chord of shame, sympathy or indignation. * Yet so brutalizing is your 
iron bondage, that the English operative is a bye word through the world. AVhen 
favoring fortune enables him to escape his prison house, both in Europe and America 
he is shunned. With all the skill which 14 hours of daily labor from the tenderest 
age has ground into him, his discontent, which habit has made second nature, and his 
depraved propensities, running riot when freed from his won, ed fetters, prevent his 
employment whenever it is not a matter of necessity. If we derived no other benefit 
from African Slavery in the Southern States, than that it deterred yoiw freedrnen from 
coming hither, I should regard it as an inestimable blessing. 

And how unaccountable is that philanthropy, which closes its eyes upon such a state 
of things as you have at home, and turns its blurred vision to our afl^uirs beyond the 
Atlantic; meddling with matters which no way concern them — presiding, as you 
have lately done at meetings, to denounce the "iniquity of our laws," and "the atro- 
city of our practices," and to sympathise with infamous wretches imprisoned here for 
violating decrees promulgated both by God and man. Is this doing tlie work of "your 
Father which is in heaven," or is it seeking only "that you may have glory of m^n?" 
Do j^ou remember the denunciation of our Saviour, "Woe unto you. Scribes and 
Pharisees; Hypocrites! for ^e make clean the outside of the cup and platter, but with. 
in they are full ot extortion and excess." 

But after all, supposing that every thing you say of slavery be true, and its aboli- 
tion a matter of the last necessity, how do you expect to effect emancipation, and 
what do you calculate will be the result of its accomplishment? As to the means to 
be used, the abolitionists, I believe, affect to differ, a large proportion of them pre- 
tending that their sole purpose is to apply "moral suasion" to the slave-holders 
themselves. As a matter of curiosity, 1 should like to know what their idea of "mo- 
ral suasion" is. Their discourses — yours is no exception — are all tirades, the exor- 
dium, argument and peroration, turning on the epithets "tyrants," "thieves," "mur- 
derers," addressed to us. They revile us as "atrocious monsters," "violators of the 
laws of nature, God, and man," our homes the abode of every iniquity, our land a 
"brothel." We retort, that they are "incendiaries" and "assassins." Delightful 
argument! Sweet, potent "moral suasion!" What slave has it Ireed — what pro- 
selyte can it ever make? But if your course was wholly different — if you distilled 
nectar from your lips, and discoursed sweetest music, could you reasonably indulge 
the hope of accomplishing your object by such means? Nay, supposi ig that we 
were all convinced, and thought of slavery precisely as you do, at what era of "mo- 
ral suasion" do you imagine you couldprevail onus to give up a thousand million of 
dollars in the value ofour slaves, and a thousand million of dollars more in the depre- 
ciation of our lands, in consequence of the want of laborers to cultivate them? Con- 
sider: were ever any people, civilized or savage, persuaded by any argument, human 
or Divine, to surrender voluntarily two thousand million of dollars? — Would you think 
of asking five millions of Englishmen to contribute either at once or gradually, four 
hundred and fifty millions of pounda sterling, to the cause of philanthropy, even if the 



Gov. HainmonfTs Letters on Southern /Slav:iy, 19 

purpose to be accomplished was not of doubtful goodness? If you arc prepared to 
undertake such a scheme, try it at home. Collect y:v\\' fund, purchase our slaves, 
and do with them as you like. Be all the glory yours, fairly and honestly won. But 
you see the absurdity of. such an idea: \way then, with your pretended "moral sua- 
sion." You know it is mere nonsense. The abolitionists have no faith in them-, 
selves. Those who expect to accomplish any thing, count on means altogether dif- 
ferent. They aim first to alarm us; that failing, to compel us by force to emancipate 
our slaves, at our own risk and cost. To these purposes, they obviously direct all 
their energies. Our Northern liberty men, have endeavored to disseminate their 
destructive doctrines among our slaves, and excite them to insurrection. But we 
have put an end to that, and stricken terror into them. They dare not show their 
faces here. Then they declared they would dissolve the Union. " Let them do it. 
The North would repent it far more than the South. We are not alarmed at the 
idea. We are v/ell content to give up the Union sooner than sacrifice two thousand 
million of dollars, and with them all the rights we prize. You may take it for gran- 
ted, that it is impossible to persuade or alarm us into emancipation, or to making the 
first step towards it. Nothing then, is left to try, but sheer force. If the abolitionists 
are prepared to expend their own treasure, and shed their own blood, as freely as 
they ask us to do, let them come. We do not court the conflict; but we will not and 
we cannot shrink from it. If they are ready to go so far: if, as I expect, thfiir phi- 
lanthropy recoils from it: if they are looking only ^ov cheap glory, let them turn their 
thoughts elsewhere and leave us in peace. Be the sin, the danger and the evils of 
slavery all our own. We compel, we ask none to share them with us. 

I am well aware that a notable scheme has been set on foot to achieve abolition, 
by making, what is by courtesy called "free" labor, so much cheiper than slave labor 
as to force the abandonment of the latter- Though we are beginning to manufac- 
ture with slaves. I do not think you will attempt to pinch your operatives closer in 
Great Britain. You cannot curtail the rags with which they vainly attempt to cover 
their nakedness, nor reduce the porridge, which barely, and not always, keeps those 
who have etnployment, from perishing with famine. When you can do this, we will 
consider whether our slaves may not dispense with a pound or two of bacon per 
week, or a few garments annually. Your aim, however, is to cheapen labor in the 
tropics. The idea of doing this by exporting your 'bold yeomanry,' is I presume given 
up. Cromwell tried it when he sold the captured tbllowors of Charles into West India 
slavery, where they speedily found graves. Nor have your recent experiments on 
British and even Dutch constitutions succeeded better. Have you still faith in carrying 
thither your Coolies from Hindostan? Doubtless that once wild robber race, whose 
highest eulogium was, that they did not murder merely for the love of blood, have 
been tamed down, and are perhaps "keen for immigration," tor since your civiliza- 
tion has reached it, plunder has grown scarce iu Guzerat. But that is the result of 
the experiment thus far? Have the Coolies, ceasing to handle arms, learned to han- 
die spades, and, prove hardy and profitable laborers? On the contrary, broken in 
spirit and stricken with disease at home, the wretched victims whom you have hitherto 
kidnapped for a bounty, confined in depots, put under hatches and carried across the 
ocean, forced into "voluntary imigration," have done little;but lie down and die on the 
pseudo soil of freedom. At the end of five years, two-thirds, in some colonies a 
large proportion, are no more! Humane and pious contrivance! To alleviate the 
fancied sufferings of the accuised posterity of Ham, you sacrifice by a cruel death 
two-thirds of the chi dren of the blessed Shem — and demand the applause of christians, 
the blessing of heaven! If this "experiment" is to go on, in God's name try your 
hand upon the Thugs. That other species of "Immigration" to which you are resort- 
ing, I will consider presently. 

But what do you calculate will be the result of emancipation? You will probably 
point me by way of answer to the West Indies — doubtless to Antigua, the great boast 
of abolition. Admitting that it has succeeded there — which I wMl do fijr the sake of 
argument — do you not know the reason of it? The true and only causes of whatever 
success has attended it in Antigua are, that the population was before crowded, and 
all or nearly all the arable land in cultivation. The emancipated negroes could not, 



20 Gov. Ilammond^s Letters on Southern Slavery. 

many ofthem, getaway if they desired; and knew not where to go in case they did< 
They had practically no aUornat'ive Init to remain on the spot; and remaining, they 
must work on the terms of the proprietors, or perish — vhe strong arm of the mother 
country forl)idding all ho|)e of seizing the Land for themselves. The Proprietors, well 
knowing that they could thus command labor for the merest necessities of life, which 
was much cheaper than maintaining the non effective, as well as the effective slaves 
in a style which decency and interest, if not humanity, required, willingly accepted 
half their value, and at once realized far more than the interest on the other half in 
the diminution of their losses, and the reduced comforts of theyree?«(^rt. One of your 
most illustrious Judges, who was also a profound and philosophical Historian,' has 
said "that Villeinage was not abolished, but went to decay in England." This 
was the process, This has been the process whenever (the name of) Villeinage 
or Slavery has been successfully abandoned. Slavery in fact "went into decay" 
in Antigua. I have admitted that under similar circumstances, it might profitably 
cease here — that is, profitably to the individual proprietors. Give me half tho 
"alue of my slaves, and compel them to remain and labor on my plantation at 
10 to 11 cents a day, as they do in Antigua, supporting themselves and families, 
and you shall have them to-morrow, and if you like dub them "free." Not to 
stickle, I would surrender them without price. No — I recall my words: My hu- 
manity revolts at the idea. I am attached to my slaves, and would not have art or 
part in reducing them to such a condition. I deny, however, that Antigua, as a 
community, is or ever will )je as prosferous under present circumstances, as she 
was before abolition, though fully ripe for it. The fact is well known. The 
reason is, that the African, if not a distinct, is an inferior race, and never will 
effect, as it never has effected, as much in any other condition as in that of" 
Slavery. 

I know of no Slaveholder who has visited the West Indies since Slavery was abol- 
ished, and published 7j2.s views of it. All our facts and opinions come through the 
friends of the experiment, or at least those not oppos'-d to it. Taking lliese, even 
without allowance, to be true as stated, 1 do not see where the Abolitionists find cause 
for exultation. The tables of exports, which are the best evidences of the condition 
of a ;;co|)le, exhibit a woful falling off — excused, it is true, by unprecedented droughts 
and l)urricanes, to which their free labor seems unaccountably more subject than slave 
labor used to be. I will not go into detail. It is well known that a large proportion 
of British Legislation and expenditure, and that proportion still constantly increasing, 
is most an?:iously devoted to repairing the monstrous error of emancipation. You 
arc actually galvanizing your expiring colonies. The truth, deduced from all the 
facts, was thus pithily stated by the London Quarterl} Review, as long ago as 1840. 
"None of the benefits anticipated by mistaken good intentions have been realized, 
while every evil wished for by knaves and foreseen by the wise, has been painfully 
verified. The wild rashness of fanaticism has made the emancipation of the 
Slaves equivalent to the loss of one half of the West Indies, and yet put back 
the chance of Negro civilization." {Art. Ld. Diidley^s Letters.) Such are the 
real fruits of your never-to-be-too-much glorified abolition, and the valuable dividend 
of your twenty millions of pounds sterling invested therein. 



No, 4. 

Revival of the Slave Trade under a new name — Emancipation in the United States 
certain to result in the Extermination of the Negro Race — Conclusion. 

If any farther proof was wanted, of the utter and well known though not yet openly 
avowed failure of West Indian emancipation, it would be furnished hy the startling 
fact that the African Slave Trade has been actually revived under the ausp'ces and 
protection of the British Government. Under the specious guise of "Immigration" 
they are replenishing these Eslands with slaves from the coast of Africa. Your colo- 
ny of Sierra Leone, founded on that coast to prevent the Slave Trade, and peopled 



Gov. Hammond^ s Letters on Southern Slavery. 21 

by the. by in the first instance by negroes stolon from these States durintrthe Revo- 
lutionaiy War, is the depot where captives taken from Slavers by your armed vessels, 
are transported. I might say returr.ed, since nearly half the Africans carried across 
the Atlantic are understood to be embarked in this vicinity. The wretched survivors 
who are there set at liberty, are immediately seduced to ''immigrate" to the West 
Indies. The business is systematically carried on by Black '"Delesates" sent ex- 
pressly from the West Indies, where on arrival, the "immigrants" are sold into 
Slavery for twenty-one years, under conditions ridiculouslv trivial and wickedly void, 
since few or none will ever be able to derive any advantage from them. The whole 
prime of life thus passed in bondage, it is contemplated, and doubtless it will be car- 
ried info effect to turn them out in their old age to shift for themselves, and to supply 
their places with fresh and vigorous "Immigrants." Was ever a system of slavery 
so barl>arous devised before? Can you think of comparing it with ours? Even your 
own Religious Missionaries of Sierra Leone, denounce it "as worse than the Slave 
state in Africa." And your Black Delegates fearful of the influence of these Mis- 
sionaries as well as on account of the inadequate supply of the captives, are now 
preparing to pr.MCure the able bodied and comparatively industrious Kroomen of thu 
interior, liy purchasing from their Headmen the privilege of inveigling them to the 
West India market! So ends the magnificent farce — perhaps I should say tragedy 
of West India Aljolition! I will not harrow your feelings by asking you to review 
the labors of your life and tell me what you and your brother Enthusiasts have ac- 
complished for "injured Africa," but while agreeing with Lord Stowell, that "Villei- 
nage decayed," and admitting that slavery might do so also, I think I am fully justi- 
fied by passed and passing events, in saying, as Mr. Grosvenor said of the Slave trade, 
"that its abolition is impcjssible." 

You are greatly mistaken, however, you think that the co*nsequences of emancipa- 
tion here, would be similar and no more injurious than those which followed from it 
in your little seagirt West India Islands, where nearly all were blacks. The'system 
of slavery is not in "decay" with us. It flourishes in full and growing vigor. Our 
country is bouiidless in extent. Dotted here and there with villages and fields, it is 
for the most part covered with immense forests and swamps o( almost unknown size. 
In such a country, with a people so restless as ours, communicating of course some or 
that spirit to their domestics, can you conceive of any thing short (d'the power of the 
master over the slave, could confine the African race, notoriously idle and improvi- 
dent, to labor on our plantations? Break this bond, but for a day, and these planta- 
tions will be solitudes. The negro loves change, novelty and sensual excitements 
of all kinds, ivhsn awake. "Reason and order," of which Mr. Wilberforce said "liberty 
was the child," do not characterise him. Released from his present obligations his 
first impulse would be to go somewhere. And here no natural boundaries would 
restrain him. At first they would all seek to towns and rapidly accumulate in squal- 
lied groups upon their outskirts. Driven thence by the "armed police" which would 
im.nedialely spring into existence, they would scatter in all directions. Some bodies 
of them might wander to the '■''^vee.'''' States or to the western wilderness, marking 
their tracks by their depredations or their corpses. Many would roam wild in our 
"Big woods." Many more would seek the recesses of our swamps fjr secure covert. 
Few, very few of them could be prevailed on to do a stroke of work, none to labor 
continuously, v/hile a head of cattle, sheep or swine, could be found m our ranges, or 
an ear of corn nudded in our abandoned fields. These exhausted, our folds and 
poultry yards, barns and store-houses would become their prey. Finally, our scat- 
tered dwellings would be plundered, perhaps fired, and the inmates murdered 
How long do you suppose we could bear these things? How long would it be before 
we should sleep with rifles at our bedsides, and never move without one in our hands? 
This work once begun, let the story of our British ancestors and the aboriginese of 
country tell the sequel. Far more rapid however, would be the catastrophe. "Ere 
many moons went by," the African race would be exterminated, or reduced again to 
slavery, their ranks recruited, after your example, by fresh "Emigrants" from their 
father land. 

Is timely preparation and gradual emancipation suggested to avert these horrible 
consequences? I thought ycjur experience in the West Indies had at least dono so 



22 Gov. HammondJs Letters o?i Southern Slavery, 

much as to explode that idea. If it failed there, much more would it fail here, where 
the two races, approximating to equality in numbers, are daily and hourly in the 
closest contact. Give room for but a single spark of real jealousy to be kindled be- 
tween them, and the explosion would be instantaneous and universal. It is the most 
fatal ofall fallacies to suppose that these two races can exist together, after any length 
of time or any process of preparation, on terms at all approaching to equality. Of 
this, both of them are finally and fixedly convinced. They differ essentially, in all 
the leading traits that characterise the varieties of the human species, and color draws 
an indellible and insuperable line of separation between them. Every scheme 
founded upon the idea that they can remain together on the same soil, beyond the 
briefest period, in any other relation than precisely that which now subsists between 
them, is not only preposterous, but frauglit witii deepest danger. If there was no 
alternative but to try the "ex[>eriment" here, reason and humanity dictate that the 
suffering of "gradualism" should be saved, and the catastrophe of "immediate aboli- 
tion," enacted as rapidly as possible. Are you impatient for the performance to 
commence? Do you long to gloat over the scenes! have suggested, but could not 
hold the pen to portray] In your long life many such have passed under your re- 
view. You know that they are not ''impossible.'" Can they be to your taste? Do 
you believe that in laboring to bring them about the Abolitionists are doing the 
will ofGod? No! God is not there. It is the work of Satan. The Arch-fiend, 
under specious guise, has found his way into your souls, and with false appeals to 
philanthropy, and foul insinuations to ambition, instigates them to rush headlong to 
the accomplishm.ent of his diabolical designs. 

We live in a wonderful age. The events of the last three quarters of a century 
appear to have revolutionized the human mind. Enterprise and ambition are only 
limited in their purposes by the horizon ff the imagination. It is the transcendental 
era. In philosophy, religion, government, science, arts, commerce, nothing that has 
been is to be allowed to be. Conservation in any f()rm is scofied at: The slightest 
taint of it is fatal. Where will all this end? If you can tolerate one ancient maxim, 
let it be that the best criterion of the future is the past. That, if any tiling, will giro 
a clue. And, looking back only through your time, what was the earliest feat of 
this same Transcendentalism? The rays of the new moral Drummond Light, were 
first concentrated to a focus at Paris, to illuminate the universe. In a twinkling it 
consumed the political, religious, and social systems of France. It could not be ex- 
tinguished there until literally drowned in blood. And then from its ashes arose that 
supernatural man, who, for twenty years, kept affrighted Europe in convulsions. 
Since that time, its scattered beams, refracted by broader surfaces, have nevertheless 
continued to scathe wherever they have fallen. What political structure, what reli- 
gious creed but has felt the galvanic shock, and even now trembles to its foundations? 
Mankind, still horror-stricken, by the catastrophe of France, have shrunk from rash 
experiments upon social systems. But they have been practising in the East, around 
the Mediterranean, and through the West India Islands. And growing confident, a 
portion of them seem desperately bent on kindling the all-devouring flame in the 
bosom of our land. Let it once again blaze up to heaven, and another cycle of blood 
and devastation would dawn upon the world. For our sake, and for the sake m 
those infatuated men, who are madly driving on the conflagration; for the sake of 
human nature, we are called on to strain every nerve to arrest it. And be assured 
owr efforts will be bounded only with our being. Nor do I doubt that five millions 
of people, brave, intelligent, united, and prepared to hazard every thing, will, in such 
a cause, with the blessing of God, sustain themselves. At ail events, come what 
may, it is ours to meet it. 

We are well aware of the light estimation in which the Abolitionists, and those 
who are taught by them, protess to hold us. We have seen the attempt of a portion 
of the Free Church of Scotland to reject our alms, on the ground that we were 
"Slave-Drivers," after sending missionaries to solicit them. And we have seen Mi'. 
O'Connell, the "irresponsible master" of millions of ragged serfs, from whom, poverty 
stricken as they are, he contrives to wi'ing a splendid privy purse, throw back with 
contumely the "tribute" of his own countrymen from this land of "miscreants." 



Gov. Hammonds Letters on Southern Slavery. 23 

These people may exhaust their slang and make black-guards of themselves; but 
they rannot defile us. And as for the suggestion to exclude slave-holders from your 
Loudon clubs, we scout it. Many of us, indeed, do gr) to London, and we have seen 
your breed ot gawky Lords, both there and hero, but it never entered into our 
conceptions, to look on them as better than ourselves. Nor can wo be annoyed by 
the ridiculous airs of such upstarts as your O'Connell's, Ritchie's, Mapauley's, and 
the like. The American slave-holders, collectively or individually, ask no (avers 
of any man, or race who tread the earth. In none of the attributes of men, mental 
or physical, do they acknowledge or fear superiority elsewhere. They stand in the 
broadest light of the knowledge, civilization and improvement of the age. as much 
favored of heaven as any of the sons of Adam. Exacting nothing undue, they yield 
nothing but justice and courtesy, even to royal blood. They can neither be flattered 
duped, nor bullied out of their rights or their property. They smile with contempt 
at scurrility, and vapouring beyond the seas, and they turn their backs upon it where 
it is "irresponsi!)le;" but insolence that ventures to look them in the face, will never 
fail to be chastised. 

I think I may trust you will not regard this letter as intrusive. I should never have 
entertained the idea of writing it, had you not opened the correspondence. If you 
think anything in it harsh, review your own — which I regret I lost soon after it was 
received — and you will probably find that you have taken your revenge beforehand. 
If you have not, transfer an equitable share of what you deem severe to the account 
of the Abolitionists at large. They have accumulated against the slave-holders a ba- 
lance of invective which, with all our efforts, we shall not be able to lipuidate much 
short of the ^ra in which your national debt will be paid. At all events, 1 have no 
desire to ofiend you personally, and with the best wishes for your continued health, I 
have the honor to be 

Your obedient seruanr, 

. H. HAMMOND. 



Wo. 5. 

Silver Bluff, S. C, March 24, 1845. 

Sir: — In my letter to you of the 28th January — which I trust you have received 
ere this — I mentioned that I had lost your circular letter soon after it had come to 
hand. It was, I am glad to say, only mislaid, and has within a few days been recov- 
ered. A second perusal of it induces me to resume my pen. Ujiwillingto trust my 
recollections from a single reading, I did not in my last communication attempt to 
follow the course of your argument, and meet directly the points made and the termg 
used. I thought it better to take a general view of the subject which could not fail to 
traverse your most material charges. I am well aware however that, for fear of be- 
ing tedious, I omitted many interesting topics alto-,ether, and abstained from a complete 
discussion of sotne of those introduced. I do not propose now to exhaust th'} subject; 
which it would require volumes to do; but without waiting to learn — which I may 
never do — your opinion of what I have already said, I sit down to supply some of the 
deficiencies of my letter of January, and, with your circular before me, to reply to 
such parts of it as have not been fidiy answered. 

It is, I perceive, addressed among others to "such as have never visited the Southern 
States" of this confederacy, and professes to enlighten their ignorance of the actual 
"condition of the poor slave in their own country." 1 cannot help thinking you would 
have displayed prudence in confining the circulation of your letter altogether to such 
persons. You might then have indulged with impunity in giving, as ^ou have done, 
a picture of siaVery dravv'n from your own excited imagination, or from those impure 
fountains, the Marlineaus, iMarryatts, Trollopes and Dickenses, who have profited by 
catering, at our expense, to the jealous sensibilities and debauched tastes of your coun- 
trymen. Admitting that you are familiar with the history of slavery and the past 
discussions of it, as 1 did, I now think rather broadly, in my former letter, what can 
you know of the true condition of the "poor slave" here? I am not aware that you 



24 Gov. Hammonds Letters on Southern Slavery. 

have ever visifed this country, or even the West Indies. Can you suppose that because 
you have devoted your life to the investigation ofihe subject — couimencinji it under 
the infiuence ofan enthusiasm so melancholy at first and so volcanic afterwards as to 
be nothino- short of hallucination — pursuing it as men (A' one idea do everything, with 
the sinjile purpose of establishing your own view of it — gathering your infiirmation 
from discharged seamen, disappointed speculators, factious jioliticians, visionary reform- 
ers and scurrilous tourists — opening your ears to every species of complaint, exag- 
geration and falsehood that interested ingenuity could invent, and mver for a moment 
questioning the truth of anything that could make for your cause — can you su[)pose 
that all this has qualified you, living the while in England, to form or approxunate 
towards the fijrmation of a correct opinion of the condition ot slaves among us? I 
know the power of self-delusion. I have not the least doubt that you think yourself 
the very best informed man alive on thi*^ subject, and that many think so likewise. 
So far as tacts go, even after deducting fiom your list a great deal that is not fact, J 
will not deny that probably your coll'^ction is the most extensive in existence. But 
as to the truth in regard to slavery, there is not an adult in this region but knows more 
ofil than you do. Trulh and fact are, you are aware, by no means synonimous 
terms. Ninety. nine facts may constitute a falsehood: the hundredth, added or alone, 
gives the truth. With all your knowledge of <acts, I undertake to say that you are 
enlirelr and grossly ignorant of the real condition of our slaves. And from all that I 
can see, you are equally ignorant of the essential principles of human association 
revealed in history, both sacred and profane, on which slavery rests, and which will 
perpetuate it forever in some form or other. However you may declaim against it; 
however powerfully you may array atrocious incidents; whatever appeals you may 
make to the heated imaginations and tender sensibilities of mankind, believe me. your 
total blindness to the ichole truth, which alone constitutes /Ae truth, incapacitates you 
from ever making an impression on the sober reason and sound common sense of the 
world. You may seduce thousands — you can convince no one. Whenever and 
wherever you or the advocates of your cause can arouse the passions of the weak- 
minded and the ignorant, and, bringing to bear with them the interests of the vicious 
and unprincipled, overwhelm common sense and reason — as God sometimes permits 
to be done — you may triumph, Such a triumph we have witnessed in Great Britain. 
But I trust it IS far distant here: Nor can it from its nature be extensive or enduring. 
Other classes of Reformers, animated by the same spirit as the Abolitionists, attack 
the institution of marriage, and even the established relations ot Parent and Child. 
And they collect instances of barbarous cruelty and shocking degradation which rival, 
if they do not throw into the shade, your slavery statistics. But the rights of n)arriage 
and parental authority rest upon truths as obvious as they are unchangeable — coming 
home to every human being, — self-impressed forever on the individual mind, and can- 
not be shaken until the whole man is corrupted, nor subve ted until civilized society 
becomes a putrid mass. Domestic slavery is not so universally understood, nor can it 
make such a direct appeal to individuals or society beyond its pale. Here, prejudice 
and passion have room to sport at the expense of others. They may be excited and 
ur<Ted to dangermu action, remote from the victims they mark out. They may, as they 
have done, effect great mischief, but they cannot be made to maintain, in the long 
run, dominion over reason and common sense, nor ultimately put down what God has 
ordained. 

You deny however that slavery is sanctioned by God, and your chief argument is that 
when he gave to Adam dominion over the fruits of the earth and the animal creation 
he stopped there. "He never gave him any further right over his fellow men." 
You restrict the descendants of Adam to a very short list of rights and powers, duties 
and responsibilities, if you limit them solely to those conferred and <Mijoined in the first 
chapter of Genesis. It is very obvious that in this narrative of the creation Moses 
did not have it in view to record any part of the Law intended for the government of 
man in his social or political state. Eve was not yet created; the ex|)ulsion had not 
yet taken place; Cain was unborn; and no allusion whatever is made to the mani- 
fold decrees of God to which these events gave rise. The only serious answer this 
argument deserves is to say, what is so manifestly true, that God's not expressly giving 



Gov. Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery. 25 

to Adam "any ricjlit over his fellow men" by no means excluded Him from conferring 
that right on liis descendants; which he in fact did. We know that Abraham, the 
chosen one of God, exercised it and held property in his fellow man, even anterior to . 
the period when pr()|)erty in land was acknowledged. We might infiM- that God had 
authorised it. But we are not reduced to inference or conjecture. At the hazard o 
fatiguing you by repetition, I will again refer you to the ordinances of the scriptures. f 
Innumerable instances might be qu'^ted where Gud has given and commanded men to 
assume; dominion over their feUow men. But one will suffice. In the twenty-fifth 
chapter of Leviticus you will find Domestic Slavery — precisely such as is maintained 
at this day in these States — ordained and established by God, in language which I 
defy you to perrert so as to leave a doubt on any honest inind. that this institution was 
founded by Him and decreed to be perpetual. I quote the words: 

Leviticus, 25 ch. 44 v : "Both thy Bondmen and thy Bondmaids which thou shalt 
have, shall be of the Heathen [Alricans] that are round about you: oi' them ye shall 
buy Bondmen and Bondmaids. 

45: Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them 
shall yo buy, and of their fomilies that are with you which they begat in your land 
[descendants of Africans.'] and they shall be your possession. ' 

46: ^^ And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to in- 
herit them for a possession. They shall be your Boxdjien forever." 

What human Legislature could make a decree more full and explicit than this? 
What court of Law or Chancery could defeat a title to a slaye couched in terms so 
clear and complete as these? As this is the Law of God, whom you pretend to wor- 
ship, while you denounce and traduce us for respecting it. 

It seems scarcely credible, but the fact is so, that you deny this Law so plainly 
written, and in the face of it, have the hardihood to declare that "though slavery is not 
specifically yet it is virtually forbidden in the scriptures, because all the crimes which 
necessarily arise out of slavery, and which can arise from no other source, are repro- 
bated there and threatened with divine vengeance." Such an unworthy subterfuge 
is scarcely entitled to consideration. But its gross absurdity may be exposed in few 
words. I do not know what crimes you particulai'ly allude to as aiising from slave- 
ry. But you will perhaps admit — not because they are denounced in the decalogue, 
which the Abolitionists respect only so tar as they choose, but because it is the i?n- 
mediate interest of most men to admit — that disobedience to parents, adidtery, and 
stealing, are crimes. Yet these crimes "necessarily arise from the relations of parent 
and child, marriage, and the possession of private property; at least they "can arise 
from no other sources." Then, according to your argument, it is "virtually forbidden" 
to marry, to beget children, and to hold private property! Nay it is forbidden to live, 
since murder can only be perpetrated on living sul)jects. You add that "in the same 
way the gladiatorial shows of old, and other barbarous customs, were not specifically 
forbidden in the New Testament, and yet Christianity was the sole means of their 
suppression." This is very true. But these shows and barl)arous customs thus sup- 
pressed, were not authorised, by God. They were not ordained and commanded by 
God for the benefit of His chosen people and mankind, as the purchase and holding 
of Bondmen and Bondmaids were. Had they been, they would never have been 
"suppressed by Christianity" any more than slavery can be by your party. Although 
Christ came "not to destro}' but fidfill the Law" he nevertheless did formally abrogate 
some of the ordinances promulgated Ijy Moses, and all such as were at war with his 
mission of "peace and good will on earth." He "specifically" annuls, (or instance, 
one "barbarous custom" sanctioned by those ordinances, where he says: /'ye have 
heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth tor a tooth; but I say unto 
you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek turn to 
him the other, also." Now, in the time of Christ it was usual for masters to put their 
slaves to death on the slightest provocation. They even killed and cut them up to 
feed their fishes. He was undoidjtedly aware of these things, as well as ofthe Law 
and Commandment I have quoted. He could onl}' have been restrained fram de- 
nouncing them, as he did the "/fa; talionis," because he knew that in despite of these 
barbarities the institution of slavery was at the bottom a sound and wholesome as 



26 Oov. Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery. 

well as lawful one. Certain it is, that in His wisdom and purity he did not see proper 
to interfere with it. In your wisdom, however, you make the sacrilegious attempt to 
overthrow it. 

You quote the denunciation of Tyre and Sidon, and say that "the chief reason ^iv- 
en by the Prophet Joel for their destruction, was, that they were notorious beyond all 
others for carrying on the Slave Trade." I am afraid you think we have no Bibles 
in the slave States, or tiiat we are unal>le to read them. I cannot otherwise account 
for your making this reference, unless indeed your own reading is confined to an ex- 
purgated edition, prepared for the use of Abolitionists, in which everything relating 
to slavery that militates against their view of it is lelt out. The Prophet Joel denoun- 
ces the Tyrians and Sidonians because "The children also of Judah and the children 
of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians." And what is the divine vengeance 
of this "notorious slave trading?" Hear it. "And I will sell your sons and daughters 
into the hands of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a 
people far oflT; for the Lord hath spoken it." Do you call this a condemnation of slave- 
trading? The Prophet makes God Himself a participator in the crime, ifthat be one. 
"The Lord hath spoken it," he says, that the Tyrians and Sidonians shall be sold in- 
to slavery to strangers. Their real offence, was in enslaving the Chosen People; 
and their sentence was a repetition of the old Command, to make slaves of the "Hea- 
then round about." 

I have dwelt upon your Scriptural argument because you profess to believe the Bi- 
ble; because a large proportion of the Abolitionists profess to do the same, and to act 
under its sanction; because your Circular is addressed in part to "professing Chris- 
tians;" and because it is from that class mainly that you expect to seduce converts by 
your anti-christian, I may say, infidel doctrines. It would be wholly unnecessary to 
answer you to anyone who reads the scriptures for himself, and construes them ac- 
cording to any other formula than that which the Abolitionists are wickedly endeav- 
oring to impose upon the world. The scriptural sanction of slavery is in fact so palpa- 
ble, and so strong, that both wings of your party are beginning to acknowledge it. — 
The more sensible and moderate admit, as the organ of the Free Church of Scotland, 
the North British Review, has lately done, that they ^^are precluded by the statements 
and conduct of thQ Apostles fro7n regarding mere slave-holding as essentially sinful," 
while the desperate and reckless, who are bent on keeping up the agitation at every 
hazard, declare, as has been done in the Anti-Slavery Record, "If our inquiy turns 
out in favor of slavery, it is the Bible that must fall, and not the rights of 
HUMAN NATURE." You canuot, 1 am satisfied, much longer maintain before the 
world, the Christian platform from which to wage war upon our Institutions. Drivea 
from it, you must abandon the contest, or, repudiating Revelation, rush into the 
horrors o( Natural Religion. 

Your next complaint, that our slaves are kept in bondage by the "Law of force.' 
In what country or condition of mankind do you see human afiairs regulated merely 
by the law of love? Unless I am greatly mistaken you will, if youlook over the world, 
find nearly all certain and permanent rights, civil, social, and I may even add religi- 
ous, resting on and ultimately secured by the "law offorce." The power of majori- 
ties — of aristocracies — of Kings — nay of priests, for the most part, and of property, 
resolves itself at last into "force," and could not otherwise be long maintained. Thus 
in every turn of your argument against our system of slavery, you advance, whether 
conscious of it or not. radical and revolutionary doctrines calculated to change the 
whole face of the world, to overthrow all government, disorganize society, and re- 
duce man to a state of nature — red with blood, and shrouded once more in barbaric 
ignorance. But you greatly err, if you suppose, because we rely on force in the last 
resort to maintain our supremacy over our slaves, that ours is a stern and unfeeling do- 
mination at all to be compared in hard-hearted severity to that exercised, not over 
the mere laborer only, but by the higher over each lower order, wherever the British 
sway is acknowledged. You say, that if those you address were "to spend one day 
in the South they would return home with impressions against slavery never to be eras- 
ed." But the fact is universally the reverse. I have known numerous instances, and 
I never knew a single one, where there was no other cause of offence and no object 



Gov. HammouiTs Letters on Sonthciii Slavery. 27 

to promote by falsohood, that individuals from thfl non-siave-holdini; States did not, 
after residing among iis long enough to undersland the. subject, "return home" to de- 
fend our slavery. It is matter of regret, that you have never tried the experiment 
yourself. I do not doubt you would have been converted, for I give you credit for an 
honest though perverted mind. You would have seen how weak and futile is all ab- 
stract reasoning about this matter, and that, as a building may not l)e less elegant in 
its ])roportions, or taseful in its ornaments, or virtuous in its uses, for being based upon 
granite, so a system of human government, though fnmded on force, maj' develope 
and cultivate the tenderest and purest sentiments of the hinnan heart. And our pa- 
triarchal scheme ofdoniestic servitude is indeed well calculated to awaken the higher 
and finer feelings of our nature. It is not wanting in its enthusiasm and its poetry. 
The relations ofthe most beloved and honored chiei", and the most faithful and admir- 
ing subjects, which from the time of Homer have been the theme of song, are frigid 
and unfelt compared with those existing between the master and his slaves — who 
served his father, and rocked his cradle, or have been Ijorn in his house-hold, and 
look forward to serve his children — who have been through life the props of his for- 
tune, and the objects of his care — who have partaken of his griefs, and looked to him 
for comfort in their own — whose sickness he has so often watched over and releaved 
— whose holidays he has so often made joyous by his bounties and his presence: for 
whose welfare when absent his anxious solicitude never ceases, and whose hearty and 
affijctionate greetings never fail to welcome him home. In thiscold, calculating, am- 
bitious world of ours, there are few ties more heartfelt, or of more benignant influ- 
ence, than those which mutually bind the master and the slave, under our ancient 
system, handed down from the Father of Israel. The unholy purpose of the Al)oli- 
tionists, is to destroy by defiling it; to infuse into it the gall and bitterness which ran- 
kle in their own envenomed bosoms; to poison the minds of the master and the ser- 
vant; turn love to hatred, array '■\force^^ against force, and hurl all, 

"With hideous ruin and combustion, down 
To boliomless perdition.'' 

You think it a great "crime" that we do not pay our slaves "wages," and on this ac- 
count pronounce us "robbers," In my lormer letter I showed that the labor of our 
slaves was not without great cost to us, and that in fact they themselves receive more 
in return for it than your hirelings do for theirs. For what purpose do rfien labor, Ijut 
to support themselves and their families in what comfort they are able? The efforts 
of mere physical labor seldom suffice to provide more than a livelihood. And it is a 
well known and shocking fact, that while few operatives in Great Britain succeed in 
securing a comfortable living, the greater part drag out a miserable existetice, and 
sink at last under absolute want. What avail is it that you go through the form of 
paying them a pittance of m hat you call "wages," when you do not, in return f()r their 
services, allow them what alone they ask — and have a just right to demand — encnii'h 
to feed, clothe and lodge them, in health and sickness, with reasonable comti)rt. — 
Though we do not give "wages" in money, we do this f(>r onr slaves, and they are 
therefore })etter rewarded than yours. It is the prevailing vice and error of the a're, 
and one from which the Abolitionists, with all their saintly pretensions, are far from 
being free, to bring everything to the standard of money. You make gold and silver 
of hapi)iness. The American slave must be wietched indeed, because he is not 
compensated for his services m cash. It is altogether praiseworthy to pay the laborer 
a shilling a tlay and let him starve on it. To sup[)ly all his wants abunciantly. and at 

all times, yet withhold from him money, is among "the most reprobated crimes." 

The fact cannot be denied, that the mere laborer is now and always has been, every- 
where that barbarism has ceased, enslaved. Among the innovations of modern times 
fallowing "the decay of villeinage," has been the creation of a new system of slavery. 
The primitive and patriarchal, which may also be called the sacred and natural sys- 
tern, in which the hiljorer is mider the personal control of a fellow-being endowed 
with the sentiments and sympathies of humanity, exists among us. It has been al- 
most eveiywhere else superceded by the modern artificial monry.foirer system, in 
which man — his thews and sinews, his hopes and afTections, his very being, are all 
subjected to the dominion of Capital — a monster without a heart— cold, stern, arith- 



28 Gov. Hammond's Ldters on Southern Slavery. 

metical — sticking to the bond— taking evor "the pound of flesh" — working up human 
life with Engines, and rptaiiing it oat by weight and measure. His name of old was 
"Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell from Heaven." And it is to extend his 
Empire, that you and your deluded coadjutors diMJicate your lives. You are stirring 
up mankind to overthrow oar Heaven-ordained system of servitude, surrounded by in- 
numerable cheoks, designed and planted deep in the human heart by God and nature, 
to substitute the absolute rule of this "Spirit Reprobate" whose proper place was Hell. 

You charge us with looking on our slaves "as chattels or brutes," and enter into a 
somewhat elaborate argument to prove that they have "human fjrms," "talk," and 
oven "think." Now the fact is that, however you. may indulge in this strain for effect, 
it is the Abolitionists, and not the Slaveholeers, who practically, and in the most im- 
portant point of view, regard our slaves as "chattels or brutes." In your calculations 
of the consequences of emancipati'm, you pass over entirely those which must prove 
most serious, and which arise from the fact of their \w\n^ persons. You appear to think 
that we might abstrain from the use of them as readily as if they w&ve machines to be 
laid aside, or cattle that might be turned out to find pasturage for themselves. I have 
heretofore glaiiced at some of the results thai would follow from breaking the bonds of 
so m?ix\y human beings now peacefully and hap[)dy linked into our social system. The 
tragic horrors, the decay and ruin that would tor years, perhaps for ages, brood over 
our land, if it could be accomplished, I will not attempt to portray. But do you fancy 
the blight would, in such an event, come to us alone.' The diminution of the sugar 
crop of the West Indies affected Great Britain only, and there chieflv the poor. It 
was a matter of no moment to Capital, that Labor should have one comfort less. Yet 
it has forced a reduction of the British duty on sugar.' Who can estimate the conse- 
quences that must follow the annihilation of the cotton crop of the slave-holding States? 
I do not undervalue the importance of other articdes of conjmerce, but no calamity 
could befall the world at all comparable to the sudden loss of two millions of bales of 
cotton annually. From the deserts of Africa to the Siberian wilds — from Greenland 
to the Chinese Wall — there is not a spot of earth but would feel the sensation. The 
Factories of Eilrope would fall with a concussion that would shake down castles, pal- 
aces, and even thrones; while the "purse-proud elbowing insolence" of our Northern 
monopolists would disappear forever under the smooth speech of the Pedlar, scouring 
our frontiers for a liveliiiood, or the bluffvulgarify of the South Sea whaler, f<jllowing 
the harpoon amid storms and shoals. Doubtless the Abolitionists think we could grow 
cotton without slaves, or that at worst the reduction of the crop would be modt-rate 
and temporary. Such gross delusions show how profoundly ignorant they are of our 
condition here. 

You declare that "the character of the people of the South has long been that of 
hardened Infidels, who fear not God, and have no regard f)r religion." I will not 
repeat what I said in my former letter on this point. I only notice it to ask you how 
you could possibly reconcile it to your profession of a Christian sjdrit, to make such a 
malicious charge; to defile your soul u ith such a calumny against an unofTending people? 

•'You are old; 
Nature In you stands on the very verge 
Of lier confine. You sliould be ruled and led 
By some discretion." 

May God forgive you. 

Akin to this, is the wanton and furious assault made on us by Mr. Macaulay, in his 
late speech on the Sugar duties, in the House of Commons, which has just reached me. 
His denunciations are wholly without measure, and among other things he asserts, 
"that Slavery in the United States wears its worst f^>rm; that, boasting of our civiliza- 
"lion, freedom, and frequenting Christian Churches, we breed up slaves, nay, beget 
children for slaves, and sell them at so much a head." Mr. Macaulay is a Reviewer, 
and he knows that he is "nothing if not critical." The practice of his trade has given 
him the command of all the slashing and vituperative phrases of our language, and 
the turn of his mind leads him to the habitual use of them. He is an author, and as 
no copy-right law secures for him from this country a consideration for his writings, he 
is not only^independent of us, but naturally hates every thing American. He is the 




Gov. Hammonds Letters on Southern Slavety. 

Representative of Edinghurgh; it is his cue to decry our slavery, and in doing so he 
may safely indulge the malignity of his temper, his indignation against us, and his 
capacity lor railing. He has suflered once, tor being in advance of his tiuje in favor 
of Abolition, and he does not intend that it shall be f)rgotten, or his claim passed 
over to any crumb which may now be thrown to the vociferators in the cause. If he 
does not know that the statements he has made respecting the slaveholders of this 
country are vile and atrocious falsehoods, it is because he does not think it worth his 
while to be sure he speaks the truth, so that he speaks to his own purpose. 
"Hie niger est, hunc tu,^ Eomane caveto.'' 

Such exhibitions as he has made may draw the applause of a British House of Com- 
mons, but among the sound and high-minded thinkers of the world, they can only 
excite contempt and disgust. 

But you are not content with depriving u? of all religious feelings. You assert that 
our slavery has also "demoralized the Northern States," and charge upon it not only 
every common violation of good order there, but the "Mormon murders," the "Phila- 
delphia riots," and all "the exterminating wars against the Indians." I wonder that 
you did not increase the list by adding that it had caused the recent inundation of the 
Mississippi, and the hurricane in the West Indies — perhaps the insurrection of P^e 
becca, and the war in Scinde. You refer to the law prohibiting the transmission of 
Abolition petitions through the mail, as proof of general corruption! You could not 
do so, however, without noticing the late detected espionage over the British Post ()f- 
ffice by a Minister of State, it is true, as you say, it "occasioned a general outburst 
of national feeling" — from the opposition; aud a "Parliamentary inquiry was institu- 
ted" — that is moved, but treated quite cavalierly. At all events, though the fact was 
admitted. Sir Ja3Iks Graham yet retains the Home Department. For one, I d > not 
undertake to condemn him. Such things are not ag linst the laws and usages of your 
country. I do not know fully what reasons of State may have influenced him and 
justified his conduct. But I do know that there is a vast difference in point of "na- 
tional morality" between the discretionary power residing in your Government to opeu 
any letter in the public post office, and a well-defined and limited law to prevent the 
circulation of certain specified incendiary writings by means of the United States Mail. 

Having now referred to every thing like argument on the subject of Slavery that 
is worthy of notice in your letter, permit me to remark on its tone and style, and 
very extraordinary bearing upon other institutions of this country. You commence 
by addressing certain classes of our people as belongbig to "a nation whose charac- 
ter is 7iotv so low in the estimation of the civilized world:" and throughout you main- 
tain this tone. Did the Americans who were "under your roof last summer," inform 
you that such language would be gratif, ing to their fellow-citizens, "having no prac- 
tical concern with slave-holding?" Or do the infamous libels on America which you 
read in our Abolition papers, induce you to believe that all that class of people are, 
like the Abolitionists themselves, totally destitute of patriotism or pride of country? 
Let me tell you that you are grossly deceived. And although your stock-brokers and 
other speculators, who have been bitten in American ventures, may have raised a 
sturaiing 'cry'' against us in England, there is a vast body of people here besides 
slave-holders, who justly 

"Deem their own land of every land the pride, 
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside." 

And who Jc?iow that at this moment we rank among the First Powers t)f the world — 
a position which we not only claim, but are always ready and able to maintain. 

The style you assume in addressing your Northern friends, is in perfect keeping 
Avith your apparent estimation of them. Though I should be' the last, perhaps, to 
criticise mere style, I could not but be struck with the extremely simple manner of 
your letter. You seem to have thought you were writing a Tract for benighted Hea- 
then, and telling wonders never before suggested to their imagination, and so far above 
their untotored comprehension, as to require to be related in the primitive language 
of "the child's own book." This is sufficiently amusing; and would be more so but 
for the coarse and bitter epithets you continually apply to the poor slave-holders — 



30 Gov. Hammoncis Lttter8 on Southern Slavery. 

epithets which appear to be stereotyped for the use of Abolitionists, and which form 
a large and material part of all their arguments. 

But perhaps the most extraordinary part of your letter, is your bold denunciation 
of "//ie shameful cornpromises''' of our Constitution, and your earnest recommendation 
to those you address to overthrow or revolutionize it. In so many words you say to 
them, '■'■you must either separate yourselves U-om all political connexion with the South, 
and make your own laws; or if you do not choose such a separation, you must break 
up the political ascendancy winch the Southern ham had for so long a time over the 
Northern Stales.'''' The italics in this as in all other quotations are your own. It is 
well for those who circulate your letter here, that the Constitution you denounce re- 
quires an overt act to constitute Treason. It may be tolerated fjr an American by 
birth to use on his own soil the freedom of speaking and writing which is guarantied 
to him, and abuse our Constitution, our Union, and our people. But that a Foreigner 
should use such seditious language, in a Circular Letter addressed to a portion of the 
American people, is a presumption well calculated to excite the indignation of all. 
The party known in this country as the Abolition parly has long since avowed the 
sentiments you express, and adopted the policy you enjoin. At the recent Presiden- 
tial election they gave over 62,000 votes for their own candidate, and held the balance 
of power in two of the largest States — wanting but little of doing it in several others. 
In the last four years their vote has quadrupled. Should the infatuation continue, 
and their vote increase in the same ratio in the next four years, it will be as large as 
the vote of the actual slave-holders of the Union. Such a prospect is doubtless ex- 
tremelv gratifying to you. It gives h pe of a contest on such terms as may insure the 
downfall of Slavery or our Constitution. The South venerates the Constituiion, and 
is prepared to stand by it forever, such as it came from the hands of our f oilier s; to 
risk every thing to defend and maintain it in its integrity. But the South is under no 
such delusion as to believe that it derives any peculiar protection from the Union. 
On the contrary, it is well known we incur peculiar danger, and that we bear far 
more than our proportion of the burdens. The apprehension is also fast fading away, 
that any of the dreadful consequences commonly predicted, will necessarily result 
from a separation of the States. And come what may, we are firmly resolved that our 
SYSTEM OF Domestic Slavery shall stand. The fate of the Union then — but 
thank God not of Republican Government— rests mainly in the hands of the people 
to whom your letter is addressed, the "professing Christians of the Northern. States 
having no concern with slave-holding," and whom with incendiary zeal you are en- 
deavoring to stir up to strife — without which fanaticism can neither live, more, nor 
have any being. 

We have often been taunted for our sensitiveness in regard to the discussion of 
Slavery. Do not suppose it is because we have any doubts of our rights, or scruples 
about asserting them. There was a time when such doubts and scruples were en- 
tertained. Our ancestors opiipsed the introduction of Slaves into this country, and a 
feeling averse to it was handed down from them. The enthusia tic love of liberty 
fostered by our Revolution strengthened this feeling. And before the commence- 
ment of tlie Abolition agitation here, it was the common sentiment that it was de- 
sirable to get rid of Slavery. Many thought it our duty to do so. When that agi- 
tation arose we were driven to a close examination of the subject in all its bearings, 
and the result has been an universal conviclion that in holding Slaves we violate no 
law of God, — inflict no injustice on any of his creatures — while the terrible conse- 
quences of emancipation to all parties and the world at large, clearly revealed to us, 
make us shudder at the bare thought of it The slave-holders are therefore indebted 
to the Abolitionists for perfect ease of conscience, and the satisfaction of a settled 
and unanimous determina,tion in reference to this matter. And could their agitation 
cease now, I believe after all, the good would preponderate over the evil of it in 
this country. On the contrary, however, it is urged on with frantic violence, and 
the Abolitionists, reasoning in the abstract, as if it were a mere moral and metaphy- 
sical speculation, or a minor question in politics, professed to be surprised at our ex- 
asperation. In their ignorance and recklessness, they seem to be unable to compre- 
hend our leelings or position. The subversion of our rights, the destruction of our 



r 



Gov. Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery, 31 



property, the disturbance of our peacr; and the peace of the worhl, are matters which 
do not appear to arrest their coiisidrtration. When Revolutionary France pro- 
claimed "Hatred to Kings and unity to tlin llt'pul/Mc," and inscribed on her banners, 
"France risen atjainst Tyrants," she professed to be only worshipping "Abstract 
Rights." And if there can be such things, perhaps she was. Yet all Furope rose 
to put her sublime theories down. They declared iier an enemy to the common" peace; 
that her doctrines alone violated the "Law of Neighborhood," and, as iVIr. Burke 
said, justly entitled them to anticipate the "damnum nondum factum" of the civil 
law. Danton, Barbere, and the rest were apparently astonished that uudjrage 
should be taken. The parallel between them and the Abolitionists holds good in all 
respects. 

The rise and progress ofthi Fanaticism is one of the phenomena of the age in which 
we live, I do not intend to repeat what I have already said, or to trace is career 
more minutely at present. But the Legislation of Great Britain will make it his- 
torical, and doubtless you must feel some curiosjiy to know how it will figure on the 
page of the Annalist. I think I cnn tell you. Though I have accorded and do ac- 
cord to you and your party great influence in bringing about the Parliamentary action 
6f your country, you must not expect to go down to posterity as the only cause of it. 
Though you trace the progenitors of Abolition from 1516 through a long stream 
with divers branches d"Wn to the period of its triumph in your country, it has not 
escaped contemporaries, and will not escape posterity, that England, without much 
effort sustained the storm of its scofis and threats until the moment arrived when she 
thought her colonies fully supplied with Africans; and declared against the Slave 
Trade only when she deemed it unnecessary to her, and when hSr colonies full of 
Slaves would have great advantages over others not so well furnished. Nor did she 
agree to West India emancipation until, discovering the error of her previous calcu- 
lation, it became an object to have slaves free throughout the Western world, and, on 
the ruin of the Sugar and Cotton growers of America and the Islands, to build up her 
great Slave Empire in the East. While her indefatigable exertions, still continued 
to engraft the Right of Search upon the Law of Nations, on the plea of putting an 
end to the forever increasing Siave Trade, are well understood to have chiefly in 
view the complete establishment of her supremacy at Sea. On these points let me 
recommend you to consult a very able Essay on the Slave Trade and Right of Search 
by M. JoLLivET, recently published; and as you say, since writing your Circular 
Letter, that you "burn to try your hand on another little Essay, if a suhject could be 
found," I propose you to "try" to answer this question, put by M. Jollivet to Eng- 
land: '■'■Pourquoi sa philanthropie n\i pas daign^, jusqii' a present doubler le cap de 
Bonne-Esp^rance?" Nor must you flatter yourself that your party will derive historic 
dignity from the names of the illustrious British statesmen who have acted with it. 
Their country's ends were theirs. Thfy have stooped to use you, as the most illus- 
trious men will sometimes use the vilest instruments, to accomplish their own pui po- 
ses. A tew philanthropic common places and rhetorical flourishes, "in the abstract," 
have secured them your "sweet voices," and your influence over the tribe of mawkish 
sentimentalists. Wilberforce may h-'ve been yours, but what was he besi es, but 
a wealthy county member? You must therefore expect to stand on your own merits 
alone before posterity, or rather that portion of it that maybe curious to trace the 
history of the Delusion which from time to time pass over the surface of human affairs, 
and who may trouble themselves to look through the ramifications of Transcenden- 
talism in this era of extravagances And how do you expect to appear in their eyes'.' 
As Christians piously endeavoring to enforce the will of God and carry out the |)rin- 
ciples of Christianity? Certainly not, since you deny or perveitthe Scriptures in the 
doctrines you advance; and in your conduct turnish a glaring contrast to the exam- 
ples of Christ and the Apostles. As Philanthropists, devoting yourselves to the cause 
of humanity, relieving the needy, comforting the afllicted, creating peace and glad- 
ness and plenty round about you? Certainly not; since you turn from the needy and 
the afflicted; from strife, sorrow and starvation which surrounds you; close your eyes 
and hands upon them; shut out from your thoughts and feelings the human misery which 
is real, tangible, and within your reach, to indulge your morbid imagination in conjuring 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



32 Gov. HamnmndJs Letters o 



up woes and wants among a strange people in q g^^ j^g 653 W'^^^'' '" 

the shape of costless denunciation- of their hes, , ^ ^ sp o- them 

"firebrands, arrows and death." Sflch folly and madnes^;; snch wild, mockery and 
base imposture, can never win for you, in the- sober judgment of future times, the 
name of Philanthropists. Will you eVen be regarded as worthy citizens? Scarcely, 
when the purposes you have in view can only be achieved by revolutionizino- cto- 
vernraents and overturning social systetns, and when you do not hestate zealously 
and earnestly to recommend such measures. Be assured then, that posterity will not 
regard tite Abolitionists as Christians, Philanthropists, or virtuous citizens. It will, 
I have no doubt, look upon the mass of the party as silly enthusiasts, led away by de- 
signing characters, as is the case with all parties that break from the great, acknow- 
ledged ties, which bind civilized man in fellowship. The leaders themselves will be 
regarded as mere ambitious men; not taking rank with those whose ambition is "eao-le- 
winged and sky aspiring." but belonging to that mean and selfish class who are in- 
stigated by "rival-hating envy," and whose base thirst h for No! or ie/y; who cbak 
their designs under the vile and impious hypocrisies, and, unaljle to shine in higher 
spheres, devote themselves to Fanaticism, as a trade. And it will be perceived that, 
even in that, they shunned the highest walk. Religious Fanaticism was an old* 
established vocation, in which something brilliant was required to attract attention. 
They could not be George Foxes, nor Joanxa Southcotes, nor even Joe Smiths. 
But the dullest pretender could discourse a jumble of pious bigotry, natural rights and 
drivelling philanthropy. And, addressing himself to aged folly and youthful vanity, 
to ancient women, to ill-gotten wealth, to the reckless of all classes who love excite- 
ment and change, offer all the cheapest and safest glory in the market. Hence, 
their numbers; and, from number and clamour, Avhat impression they have made 
on the world. 

Such I am persuaded is the light in which Abolitionists will be viewed by 
the posterity their history may reach. Unless, indeed — which God forbid---cir- 
cumstances should so favor as to enable them to produce a 'convulsion which 
may elevate them higher on the "bad eminence" where they have placed them- 
selves. 

I have the honor to be 
r Your obedient servant, 

J. H. HAMMOND. 

Thomas Clarkson, Esa. 



Note. — The foregoing Letters were not originally intended for publication. In preparing them 
for the press they have been revised The alterations and corrections made however, have been 
nioslly verbal. Had the writer felt at liberty to condense the two letters into one, and bring up the 
history of Abolition to the period of publication, he might have presented a more concise and per- 
fect argument, and illustrated his views more forcibly by reference to facts recently developed. 
For e.xample, since writing the first, the letter of Mr Clarkson, as President of the British Anti- 
Slavery Society, to Sir Robert Peel, denouncing the whole scheme of "Immigration," has reached 
him; and after he had forwarded the last, he saw it stated that Mr. Clarkso.x had as latp as the 
first part of April, addressed the Earl of Aberdeen, and declared that all efforts to suppress the 
African Slave Trade had fully failed. It may be confidently expected that it will be ere long an- 
nounced from the same quarter, that the '"experiment" of West-India Emancipation has also 
proved a complete abortion. 

Should the terms which have been applied to the Abolitionists appear to any as unduly severe, 
.let it be remembered that the direct aim of these people is to destroy us by the most shock'ng of 
all processes; and that, haviiig a large portion of the civilized world for their audience, they daily 
and systematically heap upon us the vilest calumnies and most unmitigated abuse. Clergymen 
lay aside their Bibles, and Females unsex themselves to carry on this horrid warfare against Slave- 
holders. 



Charleston — Walker & Burke, printers, 3 Broad-st. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DDDam=^bS3D ^ 



